


Pray for Plagues

by lilithenaltum



Category: Black Panther (2018), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Blood and Gore, Demonic Possession, F/M, Horror, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sacrilege, Smut, Witchcraft, halloween fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 05:41:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16443953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithenaltum/pseuds/lilithenaltum
Summary: "Shuri knew, before he even opened his mouth, that this wasn’t Tony Stark anymore.“I’m afraid your Tony isn’t here right now,” a voice said, soulless and evil, so cold it made her teeth ache and her head feel as though it would split open. And yet, she couldn’t look away, though she tried and tried to. Whatever was inside her mind kept tugging, grasping and reaching until it found what it was looking for and finally, she could move.But it was too late."When Tony goes missing after a solo mission to Eastern Europe, Shuri, Bruce, and Wanda leave the compound in New York to rescue him. But there are greater dangers than insurgents and terrorists and the group finds out that Tony isn’t himself when they are attacked in the basement of an old church.With Bruce and Wanda injured, it’s up to Shuri to keep Tony alive and find a fix for the dark entity that possesses him. And if she doesn’t succeed, more than just the life of Iron Man will be at stake; the entire world could be destroyed. Shuri uses her genius, courage, and a little help from a mysterious friend to save Tony and his soul.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween, ya'll! So, I've worked on this fic for the better part of a month now and I'm super excited to finally post it. I've got a Spotify playlist to accompany it: it's [here!](https://open.spotify.com/user/melanimal/playlist/4JWgsyZ0aZzEDsKuixECZV?si=HRFKd9AKRqaPvIIld1_QEA)
> 
> Heed the warnings in the tags; there's some nasty bits of the story but I tried not to make it too graphic (except the smut). Non-con refers to a brief scene in the second chapter, but it's not explicit by any means. There's definitely violence, some gore, and torture, pain, and a twist at the end that may or may not get me in trouble lol. I do hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> Let me know you liked it in the comments or come chat with me on tumblr. I'm over at lilithenaltum.

_So clap your hands to the sound of every first born dying now_

_Watch this river turn to blood, death will stand where life once stood_

_Close your eyes, pray for plagues_

_Cleanse this Earth, bring our doomsday_

**✙✙✙**

**Pray for Plagues | Bring Me the Horizon**

* * *

 

“Tony’s not showing up.”

 

Bruce’s voice rang out in the mostly quiet control room of the compound, echoing and bouncing from wall to wall. It was the middle of the night and everyone else were sleep except the three of them-Wanda at Shuri’s left with her fifth cup of tea, Bruce over at the holo keeping an eye on Tony’s progress. It was a simple mission; get in, fix what needed to be fixed, and get out. But five hours had passed since he’d left and Iron Man refused to call in to say that he was just fine, or that the cry for help that had come crackling through the day before had been taken care of.

 

At first, Shuri couldn’t really bring herself to get worried. Worrying only got you so far and she was fairly certain Tony Stark didn’t want her to worry about him. She was pretty sure he didn’t really even like her much, and she was fine with that. Really. Everyone else liked her just fine, so it didn’t matter.

 

It did. A little. But she refused to care about it.

 

“Tracker probably got lost in static,” Shuri said lazily and leaned back in her seat, her back aching and her butt numb. If she hadn’t promised she’d stay up until Tony came back safe and sound, she’d already be in bed right now. And that sounded so nice, especially since she’d been awake since five that morning.

 

Bruce turned around to face her with a sigh, worry written all over his face and she felt a little badly about how dismissive she was about Tony’s safety. She might not care about Stark, but she knew Bruce did tremendously. The two were thick as thieves and best friends. And besides, Shuri liked both Bruce and Tony’s other best friend, James Rhodes, quite a lot. It wouldn’t be nice to be so flippant about him potentially being in some sort of trouble.

 

And that was possible. The world was a very complex, very unpredictable place. Anything could happen no matter the preparation one had put into a mission.

 

“I’m sure he’s fine, Bruce,” Shuri said, this time a little softer. “Give him another hour. And if nothing comes up, we’ll go hunt for him.”

 

He turned back toward the holo and nodded as he tried hard to settle back and keep his nervousness to himself. But Shuri knew nothing short of seeing Tony descend from the darkened sky would ease the man and so she put on a little music, just to distract them all, and to keep Wanda from yawning so much.

 

An hour passed, and nothing. And on the second that hand shifted over from 2 to 3 a.m., Bruce Banner got up and grabbed his jacket and keys to the quinjet without a word. Shuri groaned. She really did not want to go hunting for anyone in Europe this time of morning.

 

“Maybe we can stop by Paris on the way back and grab some macarons,” Wanda said with a sleepy blink. “Tony’s buying.”

 

Shuri managed a smile and followed Wanda out the control room. The sooner they could get this done, the sooner they could go to sleep.

 

Macarons sounded really nice right about now.

 

* * *

 

  
Knowing the general vicinity of where he was supposed to be gave them a bit of an advantage over where to search. In the few hours it took to fly from New York to Eastern Europe, not once did Tony’s tracker or location ping up on their systems, and for the first time since they left, somewhere over the Atlantic, she did actually begin to worry.

 

Bruce sat in the passenger seat as she flew, his nails in his mouth and his head turned to look out at the dark clouds that passed them. It would be morning in Europe when they landed, and she could already see the skies beginning to lighten a bit. Wanda slept like a rock in the back seat. She had insisted she didn’t mind coming along so long as she could bring a blanket and curl up in one of the plush recliners on the quinjet.

 

Shuri almost envied her, but the foreboding feeling gnawing in her belly wouldn’t let her rest. She was trying not to let Bruce know how she felt, and the other part of her was denying she even cared.

 

Tony Stark was annoying. Pushy at times, arrogant on his bad days and self loathing on some of his worse days. And she really had no room nor energy to deal with another broken white man. Bucky and Everett and Loki and to a degree, Bruce, already filled her roster of people who seemed to drift toward and hover about her as if she herself were some magical cure for whatever problems they had going on. She wasn’t. But the four of them were special to her in their own ways, and so she’d let it slide.

 

She wouldn’t let it slide with Tony. He didn’t even like her, and had made it his business to let her know he didn’t. She figured it was pure jealousy. Everyone with a lick of sense knew she was miles ahead of him mentally, no matter the age differences. Call it pure luck or good genetics or the advantage of growing up in a country so advanced it made most first world countries look centuries behind, but Shuri was better than Tony and she didn’t care that he hated her for it.

 

But Bast, it made working with him incredibly difficult at times.

 

He could be super condescending. He called her kid or princess or honey as if she were some simple minded, daft child. Most often than not, Shuri ignored anything he said unless he addressed her by her name, which he seemed to avoid doing. But if he really needed her-and he usually did, much to his chagrin-then he’d call her Shuri, the syllables bouncing off his tongue like smooth bourbon.

 

She hated how much she liked it when he said her name. She hated that she wish he actually liked her. He liked everyone else, had even warmed to Loki’s antisocial ass, but would give her the third degree if she so much as laughed too loudly.

 

“He’s probably racist,” Okoye had said but Shuri had shaken her head. She'd mentioned Rhodey to the general but Okoye had rolled her eyes. Having a black best friend didn’t mean he couldn’t be racist, just like having his ex girlfriend as CEO of his company didn’t mean he couldn’t be sexist. Good point, Shuri had to concede. And yet, she didn't think he was. He was just used to being the best and now she was and he didn't like it. Either way, he was just going to have to deal with her being around. T’Challa and Nakia were focused on their growing little family and the new reforms being made in Wakanda, so Shuri was using that time to get acquainted with the mantle of Black Panther. And honestly, she enjoyed every minute of it.

 

Shuri got tired of thinking about Tony Stark and his weird attitude around her and instead got up to grab something to nibble on. She’d not eaten much since around seven the evening before, splitting a medium pizza with Wanda while Bruce had Thai. There were snack cakes and popcorn in the little kitchen on board, so she pulled out a bag and grabbed a few bottles of water, setting one and some Cracker Jack next to a still sleeping Wanda. She slid back into the pilot’s seat, though she didn’t really need to until landing time, and offered Bruce a bag of Doritos.

 

“Oh, hell, thanks Shuri,” he said, the exhaustion from being awake so long all over his face. She watched him for a moment as he tore into his bag of chips and crunched one appreciatively, his eyes slipping closed for a second and then popping open as if he were terrified of falling asleep. “You know, I usually don’t do junk food but this is practically gourmet right now.”

 

“We don’t have much junk in Wakanda,” she mused, slipping back in the seat and propping her feet up on the dashboard, careful to avoid the steering wheel for fear that she’d potentially knock them out of autopilot. “I don’t think T’Challa’s going to worry about allowing much in, either.”

 

“I don’t blame him,” Bruce said with a slight chuckle, and Shuri smiled. It was better than that worried look he’d been wearing for hours. Bruce was a good man-kind, intelligent, humble, and hilarious. And Shuri didn’t want him worried sick for an asshole who’d probably fucked around and decided to have beers with a few Ukrainians and forgot to tell someone. That’s probably what happened, she told herself. She’d get to where they were headed and find him curled up asleep, the suit half on and his shades across the room of a small apartment somewhere near the border, some guy named Andrej making borscht in the kitchen and the radio playing staticky 80’s music. The visual was so amusing, she thought to turn to Bruce and tell him, if only to ease his mind, but the quinjet shook violently and the lights went out for just a second, long enough that Shuri screamed.

 

The lights in the quinjet never went out. There was never turbulence, unless they were being attacked, and even that was minimal. Her shields were up, the stealth mode on; everything seemed fine when her heart quit beating long enough to check. And when she glanced at her co pilot, who stared at her with wide brown eyes and a trembling lip, she could feel ice sluice through her veins.

 

What in Bast’s name was going on?

 

Just as she opened her mouth to ask, there was a loud beep from the holos and a distress signal came flooding through the comms.

 

It was Tony. And he looked _terrified_.

 

“If anyone can get this...if anyone hears...fuck. Fuck! Someone please come. Help me! I don’t...fuck me, I don’t know what the hell is happening, but….”

 

His hazel eyes went wide in the view port and there was a shaky intake of breath, before his mouth opened in a shrill scream that shouldn’t have come from a grown man. And then the signal went dark, shorting out and ending abruptly. It made her heart stop.

 

Shuri glanced to Bruce, then back to the holo and caught the time of the signal.

 

Six hours ago. Six hours ago, Bruce said Tony had gone missing. And in those six hours, Tony had been attacked or...something had taken him, or...well, there was no real way of knowing what had gone on, only that the man had sounded absolutely petrified. There was horror in his eyes, the kind Shuri had never seen before. And she no longer cared if anyone knew she was worried.

 

Tony Stark was a jerk sometimes (a lot of the time), but he was still an Avenger and he was still a teammate.

 

“Shuri…”

 

Bruce’s near sobbing voice brought her back to the present and a faint flash of what was Tony’s tracker popped up on the holo just at that instance. They had a clear shot on where to find him. But she couldn’t say if they’d find him alive. Everything within her said they wouldn’t.

 

“The hell just happened?” a sleepy voice said behind her, and Wanda looked at both of them with a panicked frown on her face. “Whatever that was jerked me right out of my nap.

 

“We found him,” Shuri started, her voice low and trembling because truth be told, she was as scared as Bruce probably was. “We found Tony.”

 

“He sent a...a...a distress...he sent a signal and he was…” Bruce shook his head and wiped his brow, a low keening sound that made Shuri’s chest ache coming from his throat. She reached over and grabbed his hand, partly to keep him from completely falling to pieces and partly so she didn’t go out her mind. Wanda’s face turned ashen and she leaned forward to stare at the console.

 

“Where are we?” she asked.

 

“Somewhere above Romania, looks like,” Shuri answered. “He was supposed to be flying to the Ukraine so I’m not sure how he ended up here.”

 

“They share a border,” Wanda said, as if nobody knew that. Of course, no one was really thinking logically, but that didn’t explain how Tony got so far off track. Where he was supposed to be and where he currently was were a long ways apart. “He could have probably gotten off track, especially if there were a storm of some sort.”

 

“Weather’s been clear, though,” Shuri countered. “I mean, if he came up against some enemy fire, I can see it-”

 

“That’s probably it,” Wanda said, cutting her off but Shuri was glad for it. She didn’t want her mind to wander to where it was headed-of Tony being downed and tortured as they spoke. “He had to hide and he’s waiting on us in Romania.” She reached over and tapped on the map, narrowing in on where the tracker blinked stronger and stronger as they flew. “We’re almost there. Wherever he is. It’s close enough that you might wanna start landing.”

 

Wanda’s voice was level, her eyes clear, and her hands didn’t shake. And Shuri was grateful she’d come along. Between she and Bruce, she wondered how they would have gotten anywhere without her. Probably would have flown around in circles screaming at the holos.

 

She needed to get her head straight.

 

Shuri buckled up and took the jet off autopilot, her fingers gliding across the console as she began preparing for landing. The atmosphere in the cockpit was tense and Bruce hadn’t said a word, his body moving through the motions, his eyes blank. She knew his mind was racing a million miles a minute so she didn’t bother him, simply taking the majority of the responsibility in getting them on the ground safely. Wanda crouched down, hands still on both their seats, and waited.

 

It was supposed to be morning, at least by what the clock in the quinjet said, but the clock was acting weird and had pushed the time back to 3:33 a.m for some reason. There wasn’t really an explanation for that, except maybe that there was a solar flare or something odd going on in the atmosphere. But they wouldn’t be here long enough to worry about that. Tony’s signal was blinking so strong now, Shuri was certain she’d find him right in front of her, if she could see through this endless fog.

 

Probably dead, she thought morbidly, and she didn’t even fight the thought. Maybe it was better to prepare for that inevitability. She didn’t want to see Bruce discover his dead body, so she lead the way, walking around in careful, tight straight lines until the signal quit blinking and stayed steady.

 

Wherever they were, they were here.

 

Shuri took another step forward, and her foot hit something hard, something like stone. Sighing at how hard it was to see anything, even with the suit on and so called night vision activated, she scooted her foot across whatever it was and deduced that it was a step. Seemed like they were near a home or a building of some sort. She reached out careful hands as she stepped up, waited, then took another step, and another, until she hit what felt like a wall. But she couldn’t tell without anyway of seeing and there was no seeing through this fog. With a sigh, she slid her hands against the flat surface and almost let out a little yell of success when she realized it was, in fact, a door. The handle was heavy and large and pulled out and though she had a feeling it was probably locked, she tugged anyway, surprised when it came open.

 

And just like that, the fog cleared.

 

“What the fuck,” Bruce murmured, his head twisting around this way and that as he took in their surroundings. It was still dark, of course, but now they could make out what was around them. And from the looks of things, there wasn’t anything.

 

Well almost anything...except this building in front of them. Shuri turned back toward the door and tilted her head back, taking in the overcast night sky, the lack of stars. There wasn’t even a moon in sight, though for this time of year, there probably should have been. And when she thought she’d see nothing more than a gabled roof, well worn and near to collapsing, silhouetted against the black clouds, she saw what looked like the spire of a church. For whatever reason, it gave her the creeps.

 

Wanda saw it the same time she did and when Shuri turned her head, caught her eye, she shook her head.

 

“We shouldn’t go in there,” Wanda started, already backing up, little sparks of red curling around her fingers just in case. “We shouldn’t trespass.”

 

Bruce frowned, almost rounding on her violently. “Tony’s in there, okay? We can’t just leave him here! We came to get him and that’s what we’re gonna do. No matter...no matter what state he’s in.” Bruce swallowed heavily and wiped his face once more, his eye twitching, little rivulets of green thrumming in his skin. Wanda backed up on instinct and Shuri had claws on standby, just in case the big guy came out. She liked the Hulk well enough, but not when he was being completely irrational and not when Bruce’s best friend was threatened.  “At least I’m going,” he said decidedly, no longer scared so much as he was absolutely determined. Shuri assumed it was the adrenaline.

 

  
“Look, Bruce is right,” Shuri finally said. “We at least have to see about Tony.” She turned to Wanda who pressed her lips together tightly and clenched her fists. “If there’s someone inside waiting on us, the three of us can take them. I know we can. But we need to make sure he’s alright. Or get him help, whichever.”

 

Wanda’s shoulders, rigid with tension and fear, never dropped but she did nod one time and Shuri pulled the doors of the church further opened. It was incredibly dark inside, but Bruce had brought a first aid kit and a flashlight that swept across the stone floor and a few broken, old pews then up to the pulpit and an altar. It was old, this church, and a silence a lot like death cloaked over the interior as they walked slowly throughout. All the while, the little signal that was Tony stayed solid and steady and so they continued on, further inside until it started to blink again in three rapid pulses. They were close, wherever he was.

 

“I don’t see him anywhere,” Wanda said in a whisper, though even that felt too loud. It was so chilly here too, and even through her suit, Shuri shivered. “I’ve been looking behind everything, but there’s nothing but debris and old paper and dirt.”

 

“Maybe he’s in the basement,” Bruce suggested. “Old churches usually have them.”

 

They moved around the pews toward the far right wall until they came across a much smaller door that was partially opened. Shuri glanced up at Bruce and then at Wanda and pushed down the overwhelming feeling of dread that was rumbling around in her chest. She couldn’t be scared now. She had to be the Black Panther and be brave and she had to save Tony, or retrieve him. As much as he annoyed her, she really and truly hoped it would be the first.

 

They took the small, old stairs down to the lower level as slowly as they’d entered the building. Every step made the little tracker bleep faster and faster and it ratcheted up Shuri’s anxiety until she was breathing hard, not from any real exertion, but from the stress of not knowing what or who they’d find in that basement. And even with Bruce’s bright, broad range flashlight, it was still so suffocatingly dark. Shuri had to dig her nails into the stone walls around her to keep from stumbling on the last step and to ground herself. She wanted to scurry up those steps and out the church and haul ass back to the States, Tony be damned.

 

But she wouldn’t. She was better than that. She was no coward.

 

Wanda hadn’t even made it halfway down before she whimpered and sat right where she was.

 

“I’m not...I can’t go any further, I can’t,” she almost cried, and instead of getting upset, Bruce patted her knee sympathetically and told her to wait.

 

“It’s okay. We’ll get him, Wanda. Just be on standby.”

 

She brought forth a little red light from her fingertips and waited in the dark as Shuri and Bruce finished the descent without her.

 

The first thing Shuri noticed when they stepped down from the stairs and into the floor was that it was covered in something slick and murky and she hoped to god it was just mud. Bruce did a quick sweep just to check and with a sigh of almost relief, she bent over to look at the heel of her boot, satisfied it wasn’t the innards of some unfortunate, decomposed animal or worst still, a human. It was rank down here, stale and mildewed and the air was tepid and foul. She was thankful that her suit had a filtration system in it and she felt bad for Bruce, who coughed a few times before pulling his shirt up to cover his nose.

 

“Jesus, what died down here?”

 

Shuri wasn’t sure if she wanted the answer to that question.

 

They kept moving further into the basement, around the stairs and into a squat but open area that contained a few old boxes, rags, and a bottle of what looked like oil. Shuri couldn’t really tell in the low, almost hazy light of the flashlight.

 

And then she saw the foot, covered in mud but with little bits of white flesh shining through and her heart dropped down to her belly.

 

Tony.

 

Bruce saw him the same second she did because he slid over across the nasty floor and to the still body of his friend, the tracker on his wrist bleeping so loudly that it made Shuri’s teeth rattle. She found she couldn’t move, stuck still where she waited as Bruce bent down and cradled Tony’s body to his chest. He was so still, his eyes closed and his hair matted down across his head, his skin sallow and so pale that she was sure he was dead.

 

And she felt an overwhelming sense of sadness at the thought that they’d been too late.

 

But Bruce let out what sounded like a cry and a yell and rocked Tony back and forth. “He’s breathing! Shuri, he’s alive, he’s…” He trailed off and really did start to cry and Shuri felt relief flood her body as quickly as the sadness had, knocking her off her center. She stumbled over to where the stairs were and yelled up for Wanda.

 

“He’s alive, down here!”

 

She didn’t wait for the woman to join them, instead maneuvering over to Bruce and tugging the first aid kit from his hand. They needed to get him up top first, but the least she could do was check his vitals first. They needed to make sure there weren’t any other injuries either, ones that could halt his progress back up the stairs and to the quinjet.

 

She pulled out the necessary items and took his arm gingerly, working in silence as Bruce murmured softly to Tony.

 

“His blood pressure is low, but not terribly so.” She checked his blood sugar, his temperature, felt along his limbs for broken bones. Nothing, except some bruising on his rib cage she saw as she pulled up the dirty jacket he still wore. He had on all his clothes, except his shoes, which she found odd. But stranger things had happened, so she pushed that out her mind and pressed a hand to Bruce’s cheek in comfort.

 

“Looks like he’s mostly alright. Maybe he’s out from a concussion or something. Or exhaustion.”

 

“You think maybe he was attacked and he hid down here?”

 

Shuri shrugged because she had no idea, and nobody would be able to tell them but Tony, when he woke. She pressed a hand to his chest, relieved that it rose steadily, and then nodded. “Sounds plausible.”

 

“Is he okay?” Wanda asked, finally joining them, the muck around them squishing in her boots and she grimaced. Bruce gave her a tremulous grin.

 

“Yeah. I think so. I think he’ll be okay.”

 

“Oh good. Then we need to leave, and now because-“

 

There was a moan and a soft cry and Bruce jerked his head back to Tony, who’s eyes began to flutter open. “Bruce?”

 

“It’s me, buddy, it’s me! Oh god, we’re here, we’re gonna get you out of here, okay? Just hang in there.”

 

Shuri watched as Tony reached up a shaking hand to clasp Bruce’s face, the muck from the floor smearing across his jaw. She grimaced, looked back to Wanda who fiddled with her sleeves anxiously, and then to Bruce who was working on lifting Tony from the ground. But a sharp cry of pain stopped him. Whatever it was that hurt him, it had to be internal. Shuri felt so badly for him right then.

 

“No, please, don’t,” Tony rasped, his eyes wide and frantic. “Just leave me down here, okay? Get out...get out of this place, go now-“

 

“No, what are you...I’m not leaving you, Tony, you’ll be fine!” Bruce looked up to Shuri for some sort of help and she sighed, knelt down to where Tony lay and gently touched his arm. He was so cold, her hand jerked back instantly.

 

“Tony, we’re here to save you. No one is outside anymore,” she said, watching his face as he turned his head painfully to look at her.

 

“You have to go,” he said again, foregoing any sort of slick insult or condescending diminutive. He had to really be in pain if he was talking to her like she wasn’t a nuisance. “I can’t let you stay here and get hurt. You have to go. Shuri, make him listen.”

 

It was one of the few times he ever said her name and something in her chest told her he had a good reason for how serious he was, though his throat kept bobbing as he swallowed against a dry mouth and his entire body shook.

 

“I think he’s right,” Wanda said in a small voice. “This is a trap, Bruce. Something isn’t right and I-“

 

“Wanda, please,” Bruce pleaded, near to tears. “I can’t just walk away and leave him here. He wouldn’t leave me.”

 

Wanda touched Bruce’s shoulder and gave him a sympathetic look. “I know. I know he wouldn’t, but look, whatever it is, it’s got him shook. He doesn’t want to put us in any danger and I understand. I don’t want to leave him either, but-“

 

“GO!” Tony managed to gasp out, and with a hard shudder, his eyes rolled into the back of his skull and his mouth went slack.

 

Bruce stared down at his friend, terrified and desperately checked his pulse and breathing as Shuri leaned down with the first aid kit and dug around for the blood pressure monitor once more. But before either of them could get much further in their examination,Tony’s eyes popped open once again.

 

Only, this time they weren’t hazel and full of pain and fear. This time, they were blood red and terrifyingly astute. They glanced back and forth between Bruce and Wanda, who slowly backed away, glimmers of red swirling about her hands and the most horrified expression on her face.

 

“Oh god,” she whispered, almost to the stairs and stumbling back in the mud. “Oh god, we should have left when he said, we-“

 

“Tony, what’s wrong?” Bruce kept a firm grasp on Tony’s neck, desperately trying to get a word out of him, but Shuri dropped the first aid kit and moved to join Wanda. If Bruce didn’t want to get out before it was too late, she would. A cold hand on her wrist stopped her from getting too far and those red eyes kept her frozen in place.

 

It was like he was sucking her soul out of her body and there was nothing she could do to stop it, even as she felt the searing pain of his mind inside of her own. He tugged and pulled on something deep within her and then, Tony smiled, horribly and maniacally. Shuri knew, before he even opened his mouth, that this wasn’t Tony Stark anymore.

 

“I’m afraid your Tony isn’t here right now,” a voice said, soulless and evil, so cold it made her teeth ache and her head feel as though it would split open. And yet, she couldn’t look away, though she tried and tried to. Whatever was inside her mind kept tugging, grasping and reaching until it found what it was looking for and finally, she could move.

 

But it was too late.

 

There was a split second where Wanda drew forth all her power, and Bruce almost Hulked out and the claws on her suit spread out on the defensive. There was a moment where she saw just a glimmer of hazel instead of red in Tony’s eyes, of regret and pain and sorrow. And in that split second, that one moment, she knew that she wouldn’t make it out of the basement that night, not without a fight.

 

The flashlight went out, the world went dark, and right before the darkness took her, she heard Bruce give a blood curdling scream.

 

* * *

   
Mud seeped into her skin, drenched her hair, clung to her very being. All she could feel was mud and muck and filth and stench and the tang of blood and vomit.

 

Shuri’s eyes felt like lead, but somehow, she managed to crack them open. For a second, she thought she might be blind. It was so dark, and so still, and then, she wondered if perhaps she was dead. She couldn’t tell what time it was or what was going on around her, but she knew she was still in Romania, in the little church’s basement, and that Tony had been _not_ Tony and then the lights had gone out.

 

It took her a long few minutes to get her body to move. When she did, her fingers came up against something hard and cold. She wrapped her hand against it and let her mind work out that this was the flashlight, her thumb pushing up and suddenly, there was light.

 

She almost wished she could turn it back off.

 

Wanda lay across the stairs, blood pouring from her head and her mouth open, though her eyes were closed. Shuri watched her until she was sure she saw the slight rise and fall of her chest and she almost cried to see that she still lived. But she was badly injured and would need help.

 

What the hell had happened?

 

A few more minutes passed before she could properly pull herself up into a sitting position. She turned the flashlight around and then found Bruce in the far corner of the basement, leaned against the wall with cuts across his throat and neck and Shuri closed her eyes, assuming the worst. But when she rolled over and crawled in his direction, she saw that he still breathed as well, and that the cuts were really scratches, superficial and not life threatening.

 

Even so, she had no idea what had happened to put him out cold, so she didn’t move him. Instead, she got up on shaking legs and slung mud off her hands, turning this way and that to look for Tony.

 

That wasn’t Tony. There was no way that was Tony. She didn’t know who or what it was, but it wasn’t Tony Stark.

 

Her mouth felt like she’d swallowed copper and she spat out a glob of bloody spit, wincing to find that she’d ripped a hole in her tongue sometime in the interim between then and now. It wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle, but the pain, when it hit, made her woozy and interfered with her concentration. She had to find a way out of here and now.

 

“Please tell me they aren’t dead,” she heard in the opposite corner. She whirled around fast, the flashlight passing over slimy, algae slick walls and then to Tony, who sat slumped over and stared at Bruce like a specter. “Please, I swear I tried to tell him, I tried…” He shook his head and started to cry, great heaving sobs that shook his whole body and made her heart ache.

 

But could she trust that this was Tony? Or was this another trick. She approached with caution, claws on the ready, her mask up lest he see how scared she really was.

 

“Tell me who you are,” she said, trying to put as much bravado in her voice as she could muster. It was easier said than done. “Who sent you and what did you do with Tony?”

 

He shook his head again and his face crumpled with pain. “It’s me,” he said pitifully. “I swear, it’s me. For right now, it is.”

 

That threw her off.

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“I don’t either,” he said, leaning over and spitting, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his bloody hand. Whose blood that was, she wasn’t sure. Probably Bruce’s but he hadn’t bled quite enough from his scratches to cause that kind of stain. And Wanda’s wound was pretty serious, but not enough to bleed that heavily. Otherwise, Shuri was sure she’d be dead already.

 

Her eyes dropped down to where Tony’s other hand cradled his side and she realized he’d hurt himself. Or something had. She wasn’t sure what was going on anymore.

 

“Tony,” she began, and she saw the shift in his body as she addressed him. “What happened to you?”

 

“I don’t know.” He blinked slowly and withdrew his hand and Shuri watched dumbfounded as the blood drew up his palm and forearm and disappeared into the sleeve of his jacket. “I don’t remember what happened before…before I woke up and you were here.”

 

“Did someone attack you?”

 

“Something did. Not someone. I never saw a person, I just…”

 

“Tony. Look at me.” She felt as though she were losing him and he blinked again, shook his head so hard she thought it would wobble off and then growled. She jumped back, but his eyes remained hazel and he breathed in deeply as he met her gaze again.

 

“I came to where the distress signal was coming from. I landed right outside and came in here because I thought someone needed help. There wasn’t anyone inside here. I just knew it was cold and something felt wrong.”

 

“You sent us a call,” she explained, moving a little closer to him now that it seemed he was in his right mind. “You sent us a call and you begged us to help you, to find you-“

 

“I don’t remember any of that. I just know that my light went out and I felt something searing in my chest. I thought maybe I was having a heart attack or something but…” He coughed and bowed his head, a low groan coming from his chest.

 

“God, I’m tired. And it hurts.”

 

“What hurts?”

 

“Everything. My mind, my body. Every inch of me. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

 

“Then we’ll fix it. We’ll get you out of here-“

 

Tony’s head shot up and he looked as desperate as he had before. “No. You’re gonna get these two home and find them a doctor and you’re going to leave me here. You have to.”

 

“I can’t leave you here,” she said, though she very well could and no one would really blame her for simply following orders. Then again, she knew Bruce would never forgive her and the idea of that made her change her mind. That, and she really couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him here alone to die or worse. She would get them all out and they would be alright.

 

“You have to, kid.” He coughed again and grimaced, no doubt from the pain of it. “There’s something really fucked up inside me and I can’t get it out.”

 

She remembered, then, that cold voice that had come from him and she understood what he meant. And the something inside him subtly shifted to a _someone_.

 

There was a farfetched, very one in a billion chance that something like possession had happened...but she remembered her Baba telling her stories of demons who walked the earth in skins like a man’s, who could take hold of a person and devour them from inside out for their own purposes. She’d always thought it was pure myth, but something told her not to rule it out. There was truth even in the most incredible of stories.

 

“Okay,” she finally said, and she saw the relief pass over his face. “I’ll grab Wanda and Bruce and...we’ll go home. But we’ll come back. I’ll bring others and we’ll come get you. Can you stay alive till then?”

 

He shrugged. “God I hope. But I can’t promise you anything.” He drew in a breath and then gave her a hint of a smile, a little of himself shining through. “Just make sure that if I don’t make it that you don’t let Steve do a eulogy. He’ll make up some bullshit about me and I can’t go out looking like a chump.”

 

Shuri pressed her lips tight but nodded curtly and went to Wanda quickly, using the power of the suit and her own strength to carefully haul the woman up the stone staircase. It was hard work, struggling to keep her balance and fighting to see in the dark with just the flashlight tucked between her teeth.

 

Somehow, she managed.

 

* * *

 

The quinjet was right where they’d left it, in the outskirts of the fog. Shuri thought it odd that it was still so dark out, but with the flashlight and the fog cleared a bit, she could at least make out some of the landscaping around her. There were sparse trees to the west, a thick broad forest to her right. And down the hill, beyond a winding stone and mud road, was a village. There were no lights on, no activity that she could see. But it very well could be the next night and everyone asleep. She at least had somewhere to go for help, she thought. Someone down there more than likely knew some sort of remedy for this...whatever it was inside Tony.

 

Shuri lay Wanda on the seats of the quinjet gently, bundling her cold but still living body up in several blankets and slipping a monitor on her wrist so that once Bruce set off in the jet, he could keep track of her vitals. She’d have to wake him up, put the jet on autopilot, get the two of them back to New York.

 

She wouldn’t be leaving Tony here alone, but he didn’t know that.

 

She made the same trip with Bruce, but this was a bit easier. He woke halfway up the stairs, startled from the movements she made as his prone body was slung across her back. A low, pained groan came from his chest and he wobbled a bit, sliding off her with a grunt.

 

“Shuri? What happened, where’s...where’s Tony and Wanda and-”

 

“Everyone’s in the jet,” she lied, because she had to. “We’re gonna get you guys back home and taken care of, okay?”

 

Bruce sighed in relief and took the hand she extended to him so he could pull himself off the stairs. She slung his arm over her shoulders and helped him navigate up the staircase and out the basement, down the row of pews in the church, and out the front doors.

 

“God, how long were we out?”

 

“I don’t know,” she said, because she really didn’t. “But it had to have been hours. It’s dark again.”

 

Shuri didn’t mention that the darkness seemed supernatural. She said nothing about Tony still in the basement, or about supposed possession. She kept quiet as she sat Bruce in the jet and punched in coordinates for the compound, sending a quick but urgent message to Steve as Bruce sank back in the pilot’s seat and closed his eyes.

 

“You said Tony was on too?” he asked, turning his head to her, and Shuri hated that she had to lie again, but she did.

 

“I’ve got him in the back closet, just in case he’s got something contagious.”

 

“Oh yeah, smart idea. I hope he’s okay. Fuck. I don’t know what he did to me, but…” Bruce looked down at his ripped tee shirt, at the scratches in his chest that were red and raw and infected already. He winced and tried turning to look at Wanda, but the pain in his neck was too much.

 

“Wanda’s...alive right?”

 

“She’s alive. You need to make sure they get to her first, okay? Her head’s got a cut and I’m not sure how serious it is.”

 

He went quiet for a moment as she finished her transcript and grabbed a new tracker, a few boxes of MREs and several large bottles of water. He watched her without a word and when she moved to the back of the jet, he grabbed her arm, his eyes knowing.

 

“He’s not on the jet is he?”

 

She swallowed and shook her head after a moment of deliberation. “No.”

 

Bruce closed his eyes for a moment and then, wincing, dug around in his back pockets and drew out a key. “In the suitcase behind the bar. There’s a gun. It’s got two bullets in it. I keep it on me just in case.”

 

“Just in case?”

 

“In case I can’t...in case the Hulk can’t be contained...it’s supposed to tranquilize him but it’ll kill a normal human being. It’ll kill him if you need to.”

 

Shuri opened her mouth to say something, anything but nothing came out and Bruce held his hand up. It shook like a leaf but his eyes were hard, his mouth straight.

 

“If you have to kill him, make it quick.”

 

“Bruce, I-”

 

“Promise me. Please. He’s suffered enough. Don’t draw it out.” He sat back once more and let out a slow, trembling breath, his eyes filling with tears. It tore her apart and she made a silent vow that she’d do everything she could not to have to put Tony down. But she nodded anyway and gave him her word and with that, he let her go.

 

She watched the quinjet ascend into the dark, dismal sky. There were no stars, no moon, just a hazy cloud that seemed to envelope the entire area. It didn’t feel natural and she had a feeling that it wasn’t. Something very wrong and very strange was going on, and if she wanted to get out of here alive, with Tony to boot, she’d have to find out what it was.

 

She caught the last glimpses of the quinjet and turned on her heels, her mind steeled, her shoulders straight and her head high.

 

  
And she went back into the church.

 

* * *

  

Tony was sleeping again when she returned to the basement. It gave her time to haul him above the mud and muck as well, settle him on the floor and wrap him in a dusty, moth eaten tablecloth she found behind the pulpit. He just shivered a bit and settled back into an uneasy unconsciousness, but he was no more trouble for her. And that gave her enough time to run down the hill to the village and find some sort of help.

 

The flashlight was only a marginal amount of help, but it got her where she needed to go. It was a thirty minute trek down the hill, the rocky terrain proving far more treacherous in the endless darkness. Even in the suit, she was scared of falling off the other side and into the wide ravine that separated the road from the forest. She took her time and hoped to Bast that Tony would still be Tony by the time she got back.

 

The air was so still it made a chill run down her spine. She didn’t like the way it tasted, or smelled, or how when she stuck her hand in front of her, she could only just make out her fingers. Nothing about this felt right, nothing about this even felt like it was real. Everything was an illusion, she thought, as the first few homes of the village came into focus.

 

And it was then that she realized that it wasn’t because of nighttime that the village wasn't stirring. She realized in one horrifying moment that the villagers weren’t even there and that she wouldn’t find any help here. The place was deserted, and not a soul was in sight.

 

Shuri felt her heart sink and she closed her eyes against frustrated, angry tears. If she were all alone, that meant the one thing she would be able to do was sit with Tony until someone came for them. That could be hours, even days. She sat at the edge of the village on the ruins of an old bridge and cried until her chest hurt.

 

When the tears ran dry, she wiped her face and took in as deep a breath she could in the thick air. Even if no one lived here, there might be some supplies left she could scavenge. The first aid kit and few blankets she had taken from the quinjet weren’t nearly enough. And there were only three MREs and a meal bar in that box and Tony, if he survived, would be hungry. She wasn’t in the slightest, but she had to keep her strength up.

 

Pragmatism replaced her despair and she walked through the still, abandoned village slowly but determined. She peeked in every doorway she could, though some were locked shut and wired. It was as if everyone had left in a hurry; children’s toys laying in the cobblestone streets and people’s washing on the line. Shuri imagined that they packed up as fast as they could and locked up their doors just in case they could come home, but it didn’t look as though anyone ever had. Even so, there was no dust on any of the windows or furniture in the homes she found opened. Perhaps they’d been ran out by whatever had overtaken Tony.

 

Shuri stopped to investigate one more house, the last one on this particular street and hidden mostly from view because of the thick vines that covered the exterior. If she didn’t find anything here, she’d head back to the church and send out distress signals until someone back at the compound came for them. The door opened easily enough and Shuri was almost relieved to find that there were no signs of decay or disuse here. She headed directly for the pantry and almost laughed when she found canned vegetables and pickled foods, stuff that wouldn’t go to ruin quickly and were probably still good. Shuri bundled her finds in an old tablecloth and moved out the kitchen, intent on heading outside and back up the road.

 

She barely got a foot out the threshold before she heard a rustling behind her and when she turned, she screamed, nearly dropping her precious bundle of foodstuffs in her fright. A figure sat in the far corner, covered by the dark and cloaked in what looked like a hood of some sort. For a moment, no one said a word. Shuri waited for whoever it was to either speak or attack, her body frozen out of fright and trepidation. And then the figure moved, slowly and painfully, toward her until it cleared the shadows and stepped into the light.

 

It was an old woman. Shuri nearly sank to the floor, adrenaline draining out of her again. She kept a bit of her guard up, but at least this woman didn’t look like an actual threat.

 

“Who are you?” she heard, the language initially throwing her off, but then she quickly filtered through the words being said. _Romanian_. She knew Romanian fluently.

 

“I am…” Shuri paused, unsure if she should give the woman her name. She decided to go with a pseudonym just in case. “N’dari. Who are you? Where are the others?”

 

If the woman was surprised Shuri could speak to her in her native tongue, she didn’t show it. Instead, she hobbled toward the front door and closed it, nodding for Shuri to join her in the shadows. The princess paused and backed away, prepared to burst through the windows if she had to, but the woman lit a lantern and light streamed through the small home, revealing a sofa covered in old, but beautiful blankets and a pillow that had been previously used. On the pillow lay a small black cat, sleeping deeply.

 

“Do you live here?” Shuri asked her and she nodded, patted the couch, and sank into the chair in the corner when Shuri moved slowly over towards it. Well, she could sit and talk for a few minutes if she had to. Perhaps this woman could help Tony. Shuri sat, careful not to disturb the cat or its rest, but green eyes opened anyway and the animal stretched and yawned. It stared at Shuri for what seemed like ages before deciding to move toward her and nudge her hand. Shuri reached out tentatively and stroked the impossibly soft black fur, then felt her mouth curl up a bit. The woman finally spoke then, startling Shuri out of her admiration of the cat.

 

“I watch.”

 

“For what?”

 

“For others.”

 

The woman’s eyes closed for a second and she took in a deep inhale, rocking back in the chair with her hands clasped over her chest. The wrinkles in her face, so deep they resembled crevices, deepened even more when she started to wheeze and cough, violently enough that Shuri leaned forward in alarm.

 

“I am fine,” she said in a raspy whisper, and gave Shuri the barest hint of a smile. It felt wrong, but it was better than cold terror and smothering darkness. This woman had none of that surrounding her, just an aura of mystery and some sort of erosion that Shuri couldn’t place. But she wasn’t an enemy. At least, she hoped the woman wasn’t.

 

“You’ve come for the host?”

 

Shuri opened her mouth to say something but the woman kept talking. “Ah of course. You are here to free him. Not an impossible task, but it will require a strength of will you have not yet discovered.”

 

“What?”

 

“There are things you must do to help him.”

 

“So you know about him? About my friend?” Shuri leaned forward on the creaky couch, the bundle still pressed to her belly safely. “How can I help him?”

 

The woman regarded her carefully and nodded, mostly to herself. “I will show you.”

 

She got out of her seat again, slowly and Shuri moved to help her up. She thanked her, the creases in her eyes deepening as she truly did smile. “Good girl. Solid heart, sweet soul.” Gnarled hands grasped at Shuri’s and the warmth in them spread through her like a coal, dissolving most of her remaining fear. This woman was a friend. Whoever she was, she would help and everything would be alright. Shuri smiled.

 

“What is your name?” She asked again, following the old woman through the house. The lantern swayed as she wobbled, her shoes scuffling on the wooden floorboards. It made the house seem otherworldly, as if she were in some portal to another part of the universe. And yet, she felt safe in this house. She wondered if she could possibly drag Tony here and if the woman could just give him whatever remedy she had on that couch. It had to be safer than the church.

 

“Ioana,” she heard and Shuri repeated the name so she wouldn’t forget. “But my name isn’t important. Your name is. Your friend’s name is as well. Give it to no one.”

 

Ioana tutted around in the back room where herbs hung from a nail in the wall and bottles and bottles of liquid sat on a small hutch. There was a soft meow and Shuri felt the cat weave through her ankles. She bent down and picked it up, cradling it next to her chest and scratched behind its ears.

 

“Do you know what’s making him sick?”

 

“A spirit,” Ioana said simply, and Shuri’s blood ran cold. Of course it was possession and of course she didn’t have her great grandmother’s soul maps or blood spells available so she could cast the spirit out. For the longest time she’d always thought all of that stuff the vestiges of the old way, superstition and mysticism that science proved to be false. But she had enough respect for the old ways to know that even if science could prove something, another thing couldn’t be explained. And for the first time, she really wished she’d paid more attention to those old stories or at the very least had attempted to absorb some of the lessons behind them. She was working on the bare minimum.

 

And maybe, she thought, as Ioana rifled through a large sack on the floor, this would require something different. Wakanda wasn’t Romania and neither were the spirits or demons or even the gods the same. She couldn’t invoke Bast to cast something out that didn’t dwell in the same realms. She knew that much.

 

“How do we get rid of it?”

 

“You cannot,” Ioana said, but there wasn’t any resignation in her voice. She seemed to have other ideas. “What you must do is break the chains that hold him to your friend. He cannot survive without a host. And that is what Tony is.”

 

Shuri blinked. “How did you-”

 

“I know much, little Shuri,” she said, grinning and Shuri swallowed hard at the toothless smile. “Now, would you like to listen to me on how to help him, or would you rather ask more useless questions?”

 

* * *

 

The process was surprisingly straightforward, if Shuri could handle chanting in a language not her own and accessing magic that she’d never encountered. In truth, she wasn’t sure if it was magic so much as it was invoking the Christian god for help, but whatever would help Tony and get them out alive would be fine. Shuri had taken the foodstuffs and a large, old book with her, full of spells that Ioana said would keep her protected until the witching hour.

 

“The what?” She found herself asking a lot of silly questions but she was so confused. And Ioana was patient, pattering around the storeroom with a little vigor.

 

“The witching hour. At the witching hour, you will need to begin the casting out of this spirit. He is a powerful being, and it will require all of your strength and that of his host.”

 

“Tony’s injured,” Shuri said, and Ioana’s cat, Pika, meowed as if in agreement.

 

“Yes, and that is where these come into play.” Ioana opened the book she called a grimoire and pointed to several small paragraphs that listed ingredients and dosing instructions. “Salves and potions and tinctures to build up his body. He will need it, and sorely.”

 

“Oh. Okay. And the stuff...is it in the village or…”

 

“I have most of what you will need. But there are things at the church you may use and some you will have to give of yourself. Read the lists and make sure you don’t skip any steps or any ingredients or your efforts will be for nothing.”

 

Another bag slung over her shoulder was packed with herbs and oils and foul smelling liquid that Ioana insisted Shuri give Tony to drink. “You might want to take a bit for yourself, my girl,” the old woman said kindly and patted her on the shoulder. Shuri stared out into the dark of the abandoned village and thought to ask Ioana about what happened, but a scream from the church interrupted her thoughts.

 

Ioana’s face was ashen in the golden light.

 

“Run, little Shuri!” she whispered. “Run and hurry to him. He needs you!”

 

* * *

 

Shuri took off as fast as she possibly could, using the added advantage of the suit to propel her up the hill and toward the church. By the time she cleared the bend and stepped up to the doors, the screaming had stopped. She felt the same suffocating darkness as she had when in the basement and steeled herself against not-Tony. A spirit, she remembered, and she swallowed hard before pressing a shaking palm to the wooden door and opening it slowly.

 

It was as dark inside as when she’d left, but she could make out the shape of Tony, prone and still near the altar where she’d left him. No sooner had she stepped foot inside the church did the doors slam shut behind her. She jumped with a half muffled squeal, almost dropping her bags as she did.

 

“It’s nice to have you rejoin us,” she heard, and she had to clench her fists to keep from screaming. That voice slithered up her spine and into her head and took hold of her like a marionette. She hated it. And she hated that she couldn’t stop listening to it. Neither could she say anything, at least not right then.

 

“Will you come to me, sweet girl? I’m afraid I’m a bit indisposed.”

 

Shuri almost found the strength to say no but she was moving against her will, her body stiff and still as some unknown force pulled her close. And then candle light exploded into focus behind the altar and she stared at Tony’s glowing, blood red eyes.

 

No. Not Tony. Something else.

 

“Who are you?” she said, the hold on her thoughts and words loosening bit by bit. Her feet slowly touched ground and she swayed a little until she caught balance. She wouldn’t let go of the bundle she held nor would she move any closer.

 

“I am waiting for you,” was the response. Shuri frowned and straightened her shoulders.

 

“That isn’t what I asked,” she said coldly. “What is your name? Why are you hurting my friend?”

 

The being laughed, splitting Tony’s face in an ugly grimace. “Because he will not cooperate. You see, I only need to borrow his flesh for a few days time. And then, once I’ve accomplished my purpose, he is free to do as he pleases.”

 

“Sounds like a lie to me,” she retorted, and she moved her feet backwards to step further away. But there seemed to be some sort of block behind her. It felt as though she were hitting a brick wall and she shook as her head slammed painfully into resistance. “Why are you keeping me here? I don’t want anything to do with you.”

 

“Of course you don’t, sweet girl,” the thing cooed. “You know nothing about me or what I need to do.”

 

“You won’t tell me,” she countered and he laughed again. “Let him go and deal with me on your own. Or are you a coward?”

 

There was a soft scraping noise against the floor before she was jerked back toward the altar and directly in front of Tony’s demonic face. And then, she was left hovering, unable to move even an inch. All she could do was stare into those hateful red eyes and her fingers balled up in her fists as she fought against the bile that threatened to come up.

 

“I am only a coward in that I haven’t split you open and feasted on your soft parts already,” he said, his voice uncommonly cruel and cold. Against her will, she felt tears prickle into her eyes and try as she could, she wasn’t able to blink them away. “Ah, so the little bitch does weep. And to think, I almost imagined you were hard as stone.” He stood up then, stretching his limbs and cracking his neck sickeningly. “No matter. I’ll soon have what I want.”

 

Shuri tried to open her mouth but couldn’t speak. She couldn’t blink, couldn’t move, and could scarcely breathe. The creature took that opportunity to lean in close until he was inches away from her mouth, and his cold, rancid breath tickled her face. Her stomach lurched but nothing would come up.

 

“You have so many questions in your eyes,” he said, lifting a hand to trail one long finger across her cheek. Nails sharp as knives scraped the soft skin there and nearly sliced her open. For only a moment, she was glad she couldn’t move. “Shall I answer them?”

 

Of course, he got no response. She was angry he was toying with her, playing some wicked game where she couldn’t even consent to listen to him. She did have questions, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t answer the ones she needed most. And first on that list was what his purpose here was for.

 

The creature sighed, waved a hand and shook his head. “I suppose you can’t ask me anything if you can’t speak.” The invisible force holding her mouth shut disappeared and Shuri’s growl of anger, caught in her throat, came bursting forth.

 

“I don’t know who you are or what you’re here for, but you’ve picked the wrong person to mess with.”

 

He laughed again, this one even more chilling than the other. “Oh, I have? How wonderful! How absolutely delightful.” Both hands grasped her face now and she had to bite back a whimper at how freezing his fingers were, ice so cold it felt as though her skin burned. “I'd like my consort to have a bit of bite to her.”

 

Shuri sucked in a hard breath. Consort? “What are you talking about?” she asked, only vaguely aware at how her voice shook. There were stories, too, of demons coming to earth for the sole purpose of ravaging and devouring human bodies, of taking them for perverse pleasures. But she’d thought all that too was simply folklore. She tried hard to blink again as tears blurred her vision and burned her eyes.

 

“It seems to me that you understand what I mean,” he said, tilting his head to regard her with a mix of curiosity and evil glee. “I have a purpose to fulfill and you are integral to that purpose.”

 

“Which is?”

 

The demon moved back and let his hands drop and Shuri almost cried in relief. She was certain there would be a burn mark from where his fingers had dug into her face.

 

“If you’ll allow me to explain…”

 

He sat back, on nothing she noticed, and crossed his legs as he began to talk.

 

“Humanity is, to be perfectly blunt, a waste.”

 

Shuri sighed. So that’s what this was all about? “Oh. That again?”

 

The demon raised a brow. The effect it had on Tony’s face was almost humorous. “Again? There is no again. There has never been anything like what I shall bring to this world and never will be again.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“You seem incredibly unperturbed,” he said, almost annoyed. She would have cracked a smile but thought it better to play along and pretend like his lousy excuse for terrorizing Tony wasn’t as generic as it was. She’d heard this before, though perhaps it hadn’t come from a demon and that demon wasn’t actively destroying the physical and mental well being of her team captain.

 

“I’m used to others wanting to destroy us,” she admitted, wishing she could move so she could truly show how unbothered she was. “Do you know how many beings have come here and tried to overthrow us, destroy us, subjugate us?” She scoffed. “It’s old news now. You’ll have to come up with something a bit more threatening.”

 

The demon was silent for a moment before he tried another angle. “There are stories, I’m sure you’ve heard of, that tell of an Antichrist.”

 

She hummed an acknowledgement. “I’m only vaguely aware,” she told him, nearly smiling at the odd expression on his face. “I do not worship the Christ, so I’m afraid the Antichrist doesn’t instill much fear in me.”

 

“I’m aware,” he said. “I have delved into your innermost thoughts and seen your wildest fears. You would be terrified to wake and discover that your home had been obliterated, wouldn’t you?”

 

Shuri fought down the fear that crawled in her chest at his words. There was something solid about the tone of them that she couldn’t dismiss. She kept her mouth closed and attempted to remain neutral.

 

“I suppose too, that it would terrify you to realize that your family-a brother, I’ve seen, and a mother, cousins and friends and a people who serve you as their princess-would all be gone as well. And that is just the beginning.”

 

“Why would you do that?” she asked, unable to keep quiet at the mention of her family. “It serves no purpose.”

 

“Ah, but it does! You see, the lot of you are simply pests. Fleas, if you will. Once your kind have been culled from the earth, then the universe will follow suit and the rest of us can take back what once was ours. There will be no veil and no barriers and no protectors. All of you must perish.”

 

Shuri barked out an incredulous laugh. “And you actually expect me to cooperate in some way with you while you threaten to kill me and everyone like me?”

 

The demon shook his head, and moved from his sitting position. He stalked toward her like an animal stalking prey, curling a long, blackened fingertip beneath her chin. There wasn’t an ice cold burn as before, but the sensation was still unpleasant and made her skin crawl.

 

“No,” he said softly. “Not all of you. Only those who have harmed and oppressed you. Only those _you_ do not deem worthy. I would give you that right, to choose.” He leaned in closer and a growl pushed forth from his chest as he stroked his finger down her throat, pausing on the pulse there. “We have seen how your kind treat each other. Such cruelty, such evil. And to think; we were the ones cast out and punished.” He gave a harsh laugh and narrowed his red eyes. “But I will undo this all. You only need to give me your hand and your body and I will make you a queen.”

 

Shuri hissed when his nail dug into her skin, nearly breaking the surface. She needed so badly to move but couldn’t. If only she could get free, then she would slice him to pieces with vibranium claws.

 

“I am already an heir to the throne,” she said, haughty and proud. It didn't matter that her baby nephew would be king before she, because she didn't really want to be queen. All the demon needed to know was that what he offered mattered little to a princess of Wakanda. “I need no crown, not from you nor anyone else.”

 

“Oh? I beg to differ.”

 

Quick as lightning, he lifted his hands and pressed them on either side of her head, his thumbs pushing painfully against her temple until her eyes rolled back and all she saw was dark.


	2. II

  _I know you're not real when everyone thinks you are_

_You're some kind of entity floating among stars_

_I thought that you were as good as dead_

_You've made your way back into my head_

_You possessed me_

**✙✙✙**

**The Possession | Trevor Something**

* * *

 

 

When she opened her eyes, the sky was blood red. 

 

She was unsure if this were a dream or not; stranger things had happened in the last few hours and it was entirely possibly the demon was doing this in real time and that the once black clouds that hovered over the church had turned into a red quite like his eyes. But when she turned her head to gauge where she was, she realized this wasn't Romania anymore. She lay in a field of soft grass littered with bodies as far as she could see, fire burning over the hills and smoke in the air. Shuri coughed and moved to sit up, grimacing at the pain in her head as she did.

 

She was in Wakanda. And this was the Apocalypse, or at the very least, a vision of it.

 

Heavy feet drug her from where she'd been dropped toward the palace in the distance. Even from this far away she could see it was in ruins and nearly grazed to the ground. But she had to see for herself if anyone stll lived in the golden city of Birnin Zana. Smoke filled her nose and threatened to choke her as she struggled forward, careful to step over the bodies of decomposing Jabari warriors and Dora Milaje. Civilians soon joined the piles, as she stumbled into the city and onto the streets.

 

It was so still and so quiet, though everything around her crumbled and burned. But there was one last caveat; a hidden passage in the palace her family could have escaped to. It was a long shot, but she had to make sure she was the only one left. 

 

Shuri kept telling herself there was no way they could all be dead. And yet, something inside her knew this was the consequence of trying to play hardball with a demon, someone stronger and more malicious than she'd given him credit for. _You could have stopped this_ , a little voice whispered over the death thick breeze and she swallowed back bile as she slipped into what was left of the palace and over the body of a mother and her two children.

 

Most of the structure had been destroyed already, though Shuri couldn't quite tell by what. She ducked under downed beams and crumbled walls, slipping into the cracks of the collapsed roof that had been standing for thousand years and into the throne room, where several Dora lay dead, spears through their chests and blood staining the floor beneath them. Shuri couldn't stop the tears from coming as she walked slowly around them, recognizing women she'd grown up knowing and had become friends with. The closest of them to her, Folami, had died on top of her girlfriend, Akade, no doubt trying to protect her in the chaos. But it had been for nothing. Both of them were now dead, though Shuri could only hope they were together on the other side. She closed Folami's still opened eyes with shaking hands and moved toward the back wall, double tapping the brick that led to a secret passage and to safety.

 

It remained relatively unscathed and she let a little relief calm her so that she could crawl through the passage and into the safe room. She rounded the last corner and in her haste to get into the room, scraped her knees and palms, blood smearing on the dusty brick of the passage. But she felt none of the pain. In the center of the safe room sat her mother, head down and bowed as if in prayer, hands in her lap and skirts splayed out in a halo of cream silk.

 

"Mama?!" she called, first in a whisper, and then louder and choked with tears as she ran to her mother. Ramonda opened her eyes, lifting her head and reached out toward her.

 

"Oh, Bibi, I was so worried! I was so scared!"

 

"I'm fine, Mama, I am! I'm so sorry, I wanted to reach you sooner but-"

 

"Shuri?" She turned again and saw her brother in the other corner, closer to the wall, but something was wrong. He wouldn't move close to her, or come to greet her. Her eyes followed a line from the floor to where T'Challa sat crouched and she realized with horror that there was a thin silver wire wrapped tight around his neck. He swallowed gingerly and watched her with wide, terrified eyes. "Sister, please, run! Go away! While you have a chance!"

 

Shuri shook her head and glanced back to her mother. "No, I won't leave you, I have to stay here! Outside is a ruin, we have no where else to go!"

 

"She's right, you know," she heard a voice say and she gripped her mother's arms near to crushing, the cold sliding up her spine at the sound. "There's no where for her to go."

 

"Let them go," she said, trying hard to keep her voice level. "They've done nothing to deserve this. None of my people have, please."

 

"Shuri, who is this...this creature?" her mother asked, and Shuri shook her head, smoothing her hands along her face. "What is he to you?"

 

"No one, Mama, he's-"

 

"Her husband and lord, if she knows what's best," the demon said. Shuri turned to glare at him and nearly gasped when she turned to look at him. Instead of Tony's distorted face, she saw nothing but pure darkness. He looked like something from a storybook, a horror fantasy come to life. He took the body of a large bull, wings on either side, but he was no animal. His face was an indescribable amalgamation of beast and man, great horns blacked as if burned rising from his skull and teeth of solid gold that sharpened to points. Shuri nearly threw up.

 

"I won't let you have me," she said, her fingers finding her mother's and holding tight. "I won't be your brood mare and so called queen!"

 

"Oh, you won't?" the demon sneered. He raised one hand and lifted it and Shuri heard a choking sound from her brother, the garote around his neck tightening ever so much as each second past. She began to cry, shaking her head. "No, please, don't-"

 

"No again?"

 

"That's not what I said, I-" 

 

"No matter, my stubborn little queen." He looked almost remorseful and his hand twisted as the garote did, slicing into T'Challa's neck and throat and blood spewed forth violently. Shuri screamed and her mother tugged her close, great wracking sobs of agony coming from her chest. 

 

"What are you doing?!" she screamed. "Leave them alone, please leave them alone?"

 

The demon tilted his head, his horns catching in the golden light of the room. "Do you consent then? Shall we consummate the union right here, in this room? You mother may watch, if you wish to have a familar face on hand."

 

"Leave her alone!" Ramonda yelled, her eyes burning with hate. "Don't lay a hand on my girl, or-"

 

But she said nothing else. She was cut off by the sharp sound of a scythe, and blood spattered the walls and floor and Shuri as well as the blade protruded from her mother's chest. Shuri collapsed on the floor and opened her mouth to scream, but for a long moment, nothing came out. The light faded from her mother's eyes and she heard T'Challa still wheezing behind her, his eyes glassy and pained. This is all your fault, they read, and she drew her knees up to her chest.

 

"Why?!" she wailed, her chest heaving as she struggled to draw in breaths between her sobs. "They'd done nothing to you. Nothing! If it were me you wanted to punish, why hurt them?!"

 

He tilted his head and raised one impossibly large hand to her face, the touch nebulous in it's solidity. He wasn't real, and neither was this, she kept telling herself, over and over until the cold of his touch faded and all she felt was the pain of seeing her mother dead and her brother dying. 

 

"Because," he said gently, his voice deceptively sweet, the saccharine in it almost sickening. "You didn't listen. And I had to punish you for that."

 

Shuri shook her head and stepped back away from him but was met with brick, and with nowhere else to go, she sank to the floor, her eyes glued to his, her chest burning with breaths she couldn't seem to draw in. She was going to suffocate and die and maybe then she'd be with her family and her people and none of this would matter anymore. None of it. But would they hate her when she joined them, if she joined them? Would she simply drift between the here and the yonder for her selfishness and cowardice?

 

_This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real!_

 

"It isn't real," he told her, his hands sliding across her cheek and down to her neck. "None of this has happened, not yet. And it doesn't have to, my sweet Shuri. Oh, if you only just obey. If you'd give me what I want-"

 

"What do you want but destruction and..and grief and pain-"

 

"Not for you," he said, shaking his great, terrible head. "Not for you. Not for my queen. I would give you everything you ever desired, and everything you could possibly want. I would make you ruler of the entire world, not just one country on the far side of the earth. You could give your people the advantage they have had to hide for centuries and your brothers and sisters outside your borders would reap the benefits. Subjugate those who have harmed you, sweet one. All you have to do is consent. Become my bride and bear my child and you will be greater than you could ever dream!"

 

Shuri swallowed back another sob and glanced at her mother's bloody body on the floor, at her brother's fading eyes, his mouth open as if to curse her again. And she shook her head and wrapped her arms around her middle, the pain of her decisions tearing her apart.

 

_This isn't real! It's not real, Shuri! It's not real!_

 

"I can't. I can't let you do that."

 

"But why?" He shook his head, confused. "Do you not want revenge? Thousands of years of pain and suffering wrought on the people of the earth because of the greed of a handful of evil, vile creatures? What kind of person would not want that power?"

 

"Me," she grit out, blinking her tears away and standing a little taller. "I don't want that power. I don't want to destroy and hurt and kill. I want to change the world the right way!"

 

He scoffed, his face hardening into something nastier than it already was. "You are a silly child. I've shown you what my wrath can do should you not obey me."

 

"I won't," she said. He wouldn't hurt her people or her family either, but she didn't say that aloud. She could feel determination thrumming through her body as she spoke. "I won't do a damned thing you say. And you won't have me, you won't."

 

“Then it doesn’t matter what side you choose, little one,” he said, anger and hatred in every word. “You will carry my seed. And you will birth the end of this world, the end of your pathetic existence! But you can do this the easy way or the hard way. Make your choice.”

 

“I won’t,” she grit out again, breath coming out in heaving rushes as she fought panic and let the revulsion that coursed through her give her courage. “I won’t do a goddamn thing you want of me. You’ll have to kill me first!”

 

“Oh, you’ll want to die! And you won’t. I can’t allow that. I need your body to feast from and breed with, you little bitch. You’ll only wish I had killed you and quickly, too.”

 

A hand shot out and pinned her against the wall once more and the burning walls of the palace in Wakanda turned into the cold stone of the little church in Romania. Shuri's eyes popped open once more and she sucked in a gasping breath. Instead of the terrifying face of the demon, she came face to face with Tony's distorted one, eyes still red and mouth drawn in an angry scowl. The hand on her belly pressed harder until she cried out and she could feel her stomach cramp painfully. She cried out but he wouldn't stop, and she realized she couldn't move. He took a long, clawed finger and sliced down her shirt, tearing it open so his fingers could touch her bare skin and more pain exploded across her skin.

 

"Tell me you want this, and I'll stop."

 

She tried to shake her head but couldn't. She blinked hard and watched the face shift back and forth between demonic and human and she mentally pleaded for Tony to fight harder. Come on, Tony! Please, help me! 

 

"No!"

 

The claws grasped at her pants and jerked them down, exposing her skin to the cold of the church and Shuri nearly cried. He would violate her right here if she didn't do something, if Tony didn't do something, and soon. She sucked in as much saliva as she could and spat a glob of it out as hard as she could, and bore a hole of absolute hatred into his eyes.

 

“Get OFF me!” she screamed, desperately willing her body to move, to kick or scratch, but she was helpless to even touch him. His fingers continued to stroke the skin of her belly and slipped into her pants, the coldness of his touch seeping through to her womb, spreading over her torso and further below. She wanted so very badly to slit his throat open just then and watch the blood pour out like wine. Every inch of her body ached to hurt him, to kill him, to maim. And by the sheer will of her anger, and with a little help from Tony who struggled to break through, she felt her wrist freed.

 

Her arm moved as if in quicksand, but the demon was so busy trying to map the scope of her body that he never noticed the claws she still wore coming out to attack. Vibranium met flesh, sinking deep into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and there was a pained screech, the demon hissing like an injured cat. And then the hold on Shuri was gone and she collapsed to the floor in a heap, panting as she glanced at the bleeding Tony.

 

It was Tony, this time, and he held the gushing wound with wide, sickened eyes.

 

“Jesus Christ,” he groaned, dropping to his knees on the stone floor. He sucked in deep breath after deep breath and then pulled his bloody hands away, the stain nearly gone and the wound almost closed. Shuri scooted closer to the wall just in case this was all a trick. She’d been fooled once; she wouldn’t be again. "What are you doing here?" 

 

"I couldn't leave you," she said, daring him to argue with her. She was exhausted and felt sick and didn't have the energy to do any sort of back and forth with him. But he said nothing, too tired himself to do anything but sigh deeply. 

 

"Of all the people who I thought would stay to save my sorry ass, I didn't expect it would be pretty princess."

 

Shuri frowned. "I can always leave, you know." She couldn't leave, no matter what she was saying, but he was being annoying again. And she wondered why she was sticking her neck out and potentially risking getting assaulted by a demon for him. "I'm mostly doing this for Bruce."

 

Tony shrugged and winced again at the pain in his shoulder. But the wound had completely closed up and he'd stopped bleeding so that was good. She was reminded of the bottles of tonics that Ioana had given her and decided Tony needed to drink some of it

 

"What did you do?”

 

"Huh?"

 

"To get free of...of him. Me? I don't know. I can see what's going on. I can watch, but I can't stop it sometimes. What'd you do to get free?"

 

She shook her head. “I don't know. I just told you- _him,_ I told him-to get off me.” She retracted the claws and tugged her torn shirt down as well as she was able. The feeling of his cold fingers across her belly still lingered and she shivered, both in disgust and in fear. “You fought him, though, didn't you?" He nodded once. "Then you helped. You fought him enough that I could move my arm. I don’t know why that worked."

 

"Vibranium in the shoulder would probably make anybody back up." He coughed and frowned. "You know, I kept hearing you tell him to get off you. I don’t think demons care about consent.” That one most certainly didn’t seem to. The image of him taking her by force and making her bear his child made her shudder.

 

"Maybe not," she quipped back, her stomach settling a little. "But you pushed him back and I fought him off and...well..."

 

Tony swayed a bit as he walked over to where she sat and Shuri had to fight the urge to scamper away. He looked so shook and so horrified at what he’d done. But he hadn’t been the one doing it, she reminded herself. So she stayed put and didn’t move a muscle when he slid down against the wall beside her, his body trembling and his head lolling to the side in exhaustion.

 

“Tony?”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“No, I know that wasn’t you, I-”

 

“I could have fought him harder,” he said, and he turned his head to look at her. In the candlelight, his eyes glowed almost amber. She found herself stunned at how beautiful they were. “He’s in me but he isn’t me. This is still my body, goddamn it, and I should have…I shouldn't have let it get that far. If he'd have done what I think he was aiming to-” He shook his head as he trailed off and his eyes closed in pain.

 

"Is he hurting you? Right now?”

 

Tony whimpered a little and nodded once. “Yeah. He’s hurting me all the goddamn time. I can only push him back for so long.”

 

Shuri reached out slowly and skimmed his hand with her fingers. He was still cold, but it wasn’t the chilling frost of something unholy and evil. It was the cold of a man who was nearly out of strength and struggling to stay alive. Her heart clenched in her chest and she grasped his hand firmly, squeezing it tight. He needed to know that she would do what she could for him, even if it meant exhausting herself. He'd fought tooth and nail to keep her from being assaulted and she appreciated that tremendously.

 

“If I gave you a sedative, would that help?” She asked after a time, the silence in the church deafening and choking. She needed to hear him speak, just to know it was still him.

 

“Probably. I fight better when I’m not trying to stay conscious.”

 

“Then let me get my first aid kit,” she said, and she got off the floor with a groan, the cold making her bones creak and ache. Her knees were bruised from where they'd hit the stone floor and her entire head felt like it'd been smashed into the wall. She could still feel the vision swirling in her head and it made her skin feel like brittle glass. “Maybe I can figure this out while you sleep.”

 

* * *

 

Tony curled up in a pew, table cloth draped over his shivering body as the medicine quickly took hold. She made him drink down two bottles of the tonic from Ioana, sympathizing at how bitter it had to be based solely on the smell. But it would keep him strong and the sedative would give him rest and he needed that so much. The lines in his face remained; even in his sleep the pain was written clearly over every pore, but he breathed in deep and barely moved and for Shuri, that was enough. She had a spell to perform and not very much time to perform it, if her translation of the grimoire was accurate. Three a.m. would be approaching shortly and she needed some way to trick the demon into believing she’d accept his proposal, just enough that she could draw blood and start the ritual.

 

The longer she read the more confident she became that she could do this. The little bit of magic that she remembered learning as a small child came back to her and mingled with the magic being presented in the grimoire and Shuri was pleased to find that while different, there was still a similarity to the ebb and flow of each spell. She was interested, too, to find that this specific book seemed tailored to her need at that moment.

 

Keep Tony’s physical body from being rendered to pieces? Check.

 

Keep her own body and soul safe as possible? Check. There seemed to be spells and double spells for that, almost as if she were building up some sort of immunity to the possibility of also being possessed.

 

Casting out the demon? Check, but it would be difficult. There were lengthy instructions, some really obscure ingredients, and strict, specified times on which she could so the spell. There had to be a full moon on the night she started, and she needed to begin the ritual at 2:50 exactly, giving her ten minutes before the spell was near done and the effects began to supposedly take hold. She sighed and placed a feather in the book, marking her spot so that she could gather the necessary items. And that would require a trip back down to the village and into Ioana’s little cottage.

 

Satisfied that Tony was out like a light, she bundled up against the chill at the door with one of the blankets she’d used to hold their foodstuffs and started the trek back down the road. It was an easier walk now that she knew what roots to avoid and which parts of the road were safe and which weren’t. When she cleared the bend and the ravine beside it, she started to run, her feet light across the stones as she made a beeline for the house at the end of the street.

 

Shuri skidded to a stop just outside the house, dread pooling in her gut at the sight of the torn door and ramshackle front room.

 

“Ioana?” she called, quietly at first in case the woman was hiding. Had the demon’s loyal legions come to attack her for helping them? She felt sick at the thought and pulled the door from the broken hinges, stepping over crushed glass and broken pottery. In the little light that shined from her flashlight, she could see just how wrecked the house was.

 

“Ioana!” she called again, this time loudly, but there was no movement and no sound. It was almost as if the very air itself had been snatched from this place and she found it hard to breathe, her heart racing in her chest from the run and from fear. Carefully, she stepped over overturned furniture and slipped through the mess of a kitchen, determined to get to the storeroom just in case Ioana had somehow survived or left some sort of warning or clue.

 

Shuri opened the heavy wooden door of the storeroom and shut it quickly behind her, just in case she’d been followed. It probably wouldn’t do much good to rely solely on a lock, but it was better than nothing. A pass of her flashlight illuminated the storeroom and Shuri could see clearly now.

 

Not only was the storeroom unharmed, it was perfectly intact. And she had an inkling of why when she looked back at the door. A pentagram drawn hurriedly on the door had kept whatever demons sent down here at bay. Shuri traced a fingertip over the pentagram with careful fingers and gasped as she pulled them back.

 

_Blood._

 

Ioana had drawn the pentagram in blood, probably her own, just to make sure her potions and herbs weren’t destroyed. They were integral to this spell, and Shuri blinked back tears at the woman’s sacrifice to give her a fighting chance. There was no body, no trace of her, but Shuri knew she’d died saving these precious items. She gathered her wits and stuck the flashlight into the bosom of her shirt, then grabbed one of the large empty flour sacks hanging on the wall, and began to fill it. One bottle of every oil and potion that sat on the shelves, two of each herb and a few extra candles. She dug around in the hamper of gauzy white fabrics and let them slip through her fingers, an idea coming into mind.

 

A long white gown made of thin white gossamer and chiffon. A veil of old, heirloom lace. Herbs wound into a crown about her head and a crucifix planted firmly between her breasts, a bit of protection just in case her haphazard plan didn’t quite go the way she needed it to. It was risky, but she thought it just might work. If Ioana had any needle and thread handy, she could do this.

 

The demon had seemed hungry for her, in spite of his threats and bravado, and she would use that to her advantage. She smiled for a brief second, a bitter split of her lips that felt wrong on her mouth, and stuffed the fabrics into her sack as well. There were sewing materials in the woman's sitting room, right beside the couch. The pillow was empty; no sign of Pika anywhere. Maybe he'd managed to get away even if his owner hadn't. She at least hoped he had.

 

Shuri refused to look back at the house when she left, keeping her eyes directly on the dark spires ahead. The walk back seemed to pass in a blur and she slipped inside the church on quiet feet, securing the door behind her closed. The candles had burned down to nearly nothing and puddles of wax splattered the floor. She sat her sack down beside the pew Tony still slept in and checked his pulse, sighing softly to find it still thumping along steadily. He shifted a bit in his sleep, a groan leaving his lips as he turned over, but he didn’t wake. Shuri pushed a bit of his hair back from his forehead and let her fingers linger in the soft strands. If she pretended hard enough, she could imagine she’d just found him on the couch of the rec room at the compound, one too many whiskey sours in his system and his sleep alcohol induced. The thought made her smile.

 

But she had no time to dwell on what ifs or fantasies, so she pushed away from the pew and began to line up each item from her sack on the steps of the altar. It was more than enough, though she still lacked the wine needed for binding and holy water for purification. But she could make her own holy water, right there in front of the pulpit. She was no priest, but no matter. It was the intent that counted, and she had all the motivation in the world needed for the blessing.

 

She worked quickly and methodically, in order from easiest to do and hardest and by the time one o'clock struck, her kimoyo beads vibrating on her wrist, she was nearly ready to begin.

 

She stripped down to her underwear and glanced back at Tony’s restless form as she tossed her ruined clothes in the sack. He shifted again, huffing out a breath as his eyes started to flutter open. There was a second where she stood still, hunched over the bag in only her panties and bra, her bare feet freezing on the stone floor, and she watched to make sure he hadn’t been taken over. Hazel eyes greeted her own and he blinked them slowly, then moved to sit up, wiping the sleep from his face and tilting his head in curiosity.

 

“Change of clothes, huh?” he asked, and Shuri started to move again. She wrapped the long cloth around her and tucked it into place until she could begin her sewing.

 

“Something like that.”

 

“Did you find everything you need?”

 

She nodded, and tried to ignore how his eyes grazed her skin. There didn’t need to be a demon inside him for her to notice that he looked at her approvingly, almost longingly and it confused her. He barely even liked her, only probably tolerating her now because she was helping him. Why in the world would he even entertain the idea of desire for her? She turned around to glance at him and caught him watching her with slacked jaws and glassy, almost hazy eyes. It sent a shiver through her, but it wasn’t unwelcome. She straightened her spine and pressed her lips together to keep from snorting in disbelief.

 

Tony Stark thought she was attractive. That was something.

 

“So whatcha doing now?” He moved to sit all the way up but groaned as he did so and opted to lay back down. “Ugh, I’m still beat to a pulp. You’d think sleeping like that would have helped, but nope.”

 

“Did you have to fight him?” She reached for the first aid kit and rifled through for painkillers, tossing a pack to Tony on the off chance they’d help. “In your sleep, I mean.”

 

He shook his head and popped the pills in his mouth, swallowing them dry with a grimace.

 

“I shouldn’t have done that, fuck,” he said, coughing a few times and Shuri gave a soft laugh.

 

“You could have asked me for something to drink. There’s plenty of water outside in the pump.”

 

Tony raised a brow and rubbed his chest, hoping to get the pills down. “Nuh uh. I don’t trust anything around here that you didn’t get off the quinjet.” Shuri couldn’t blame him. She was almost afraid it was possessed in some way. And then she remembered she had a few bottles of water still in the bottom of the first aid kit and tugged one out, tossing it his way.

 

Reflexes weakened, he only just barely grabbed hold of it, but he managed to pry the top off and swallowed down a large swig, sighing when the water hit his throat. “Remind me to never take water for granted.”

 

“Duly noted. How are you feeling, besides tired?”

 

Tony lay back on the pew again and pressed a hand to his forehead. “I’m still freezing. It’s like I can’t get warm no matter how many blankets I have wrapped around me. You know, I’m thinking he’s trying to kill me from the inside out.” He laughed, a sad and resigned one. “He’s damn near to succeeding. Fucker.” He leaned over and scooted the first aid kit his way, finding an MRE and he made a grateful sound. "Fuck yes, lasagna."

 

“He won’t succeed," she said firmly and she finished threading her needle. She realized vaguely that she probably needed to eat one of those meals, as well, but didn't have any sort of appetite. At the very least, she decided to nibble on a bit of a meal bar and drink some water. She tore the package open and took a half hearted bite.

 

“We’ve got two hours before we start the casting. You’ll be fine. Just hang on in the meantime.”

 

He hummed his acknowledgement and they were silent for a while, her fingers gathering the gown into several spots as she quickly and crudely sewed the fabric into something like a gown. It would be simple, no embellishments except the pleating she’d done on the bodice, but it would work. She ignored how cold she was and how much she ached and kept her fingers working swiftly along the material. There was movement behind her and she jerked out of instinct, moving over toward the first aid kit with her scissors in hand, but it was still Tony, finally moving to sit up as the pain reliever took hold. He took note of what she was doing and frowned at the lace wrapped around her nearly bare body and the gauzy chiffon in her hands and shook his head.

 

“Please tell me you’re not actually going to give into this creep.”

 

“I am.”

 

“Shuri. What the fuck?”

 

She turned to catch his eye and she kept her gaze level and unwavering. “I’m not going to actually marry him,” she said, scoffing a bit at the idea. “I’m simply giving him the idea that I’m acquiescing.”

 

“Okay, then maybe you shouldn’t be telling me this,” Tony said, a little angrily. “Otherwise, he’ll see this coming from a mile away and the whole thing will be fucked.”

 

Shuri shook her head and gave him a terse smile. The lace around her chest nearly slipped and she sat the half finished gown to the side to readjust. Tony’s eyes followed the action and she felt her cheeks warm. “From my observation, that won’t be a problem. You have the advantage of knowing what happens when he’s possessing you. He doesn't seem to have that advantage, for whatever reason.” Nothing she’d said to Tony seemed to register to the demon in her discorded conversation with the him.

 

“Okay, but look, what if this goes too far? What if he catches on during...whatever, and he attacks when he figures out you’re not going to be his Queen of the Apocalypse?”

 

“Then I’ll deal with it,” she said sternly, picking up her sewing once more and beginning a line of stitches along what would be sleeves. “You seem to severely underestimate me, Tony Stark.” She couldn’t help that there was a little bit of bitterness in that statement. She’d put up with him not wanting her around for over a year. It was tiring, especially when she was trying to save the both of them.

 

But he was surprisingly quiet after that, his face unreadable.

 

“What? You can’t say I’m not telling the truth.”

 

“That I underestimate you?” He shrugged slowly. “Maybe. I mean, yeah I probably do a little but...I’ve seen what you can do.”

 

“And so don't you think I can take care of myself?”

 

“I do,” he insisted, leaning forward a bit with his arm wrapped around his middle. The blanket shifted from his shoulders and in the golden glow of the candlelight, his skin glowed. “Thing is...I don’t trust that I can fight this thing long enough to give you a chance. This isn’t some run of the mill sucker itching for a fight, Shuri. This is a whole fucking demon.” He swallowed hard and his eyes hardened, though not toward her.

 

“I have been battling the fuck out of this thing for days. I have spent every waking moment making sure he isn’t let loose and doesn't go out killing anyone around here because I’d be responsible. And if he hurts you, that’s on me.”

 

“It’s on me,” she began, attempting to sway the conversation her way, but he cuts her off.

 

“Nope. Me. I’m the one who has to chain him down, not you. And if I let you put yourself in that danger, what the fuck kind of person am I?”

 

She blew out a breath and glared at him, annoyed that he was trying to guilt trip her with the whole ‘selfless leader’ thing. It wouldn’t work. She was going to do this and there wasn’t much he could to stop her. But when he blinked back tears, she briefly considered changing her approach.

 

“Tony. I’ll be alright.” She really had no way of knowing if she would, but it wouldn’t hurt to lie again and pretend like she would. “I’ve got a book full of spells that can keep him tied down for as long as I need. And,” she continued, dropping her eyes back to the nearly finished gown, “I’ve got...well...me.”

 

“You.”

 

“Yes. He wants me, you know.” He wanted her to birth the Antichrist, but he seemed to also want her just because.

 

Tony started to laugh, something hard and almost angry and at first she thought he was laughing at her, but she realized that he was laughing at the irony of her trying to tell him about what the demon inside him wanted. He had to know in graphic detail. She felt her skin flush.

 

“Trust me, princess, he tells me every chance he gets.”

 

She opened her mouth to speak but shut it. There wasn’t much she could really say to counter that. So she asked a question instead.

 

“Does he...do that often? Speak to you?”

 

“All the time.” Tony leaned back again and readjusted the blanket around him, his eyes drifting off into the corner. “He tells me about his sordid plans for the future, of how he’ll scorch the earth and rid it of mankind. We’re just pests, you know. Way back, before God decided to create us all, they were the chosen children. That’s literally what the entire ‘fallen angels’ bullshit was supposedly about.”

 

“You believe all of that?”

 

“Not really, no. He’s kinda convincing, so sometimes I wonder, but...I’m technically an atheist. So I shouldn’t even believe this is happening to me.”

 

Shuri’s mouth curled up. “You could totally dismiss this as psychosis.”

 

“Or aliens,” he said, a hint of a laugh on his breath. “I definitely believe in aliens.”

 

She pushed the needle in the fabric one last time and tied off the thread, clipping it close to the knot. She turned the dress back to the right side and holds it up for Tony’s approval. “How’d I do?”

 

“I didn’t realize you could sew. Ever thought of trying your hand at fashion design?”

 

She managed to laugh and nodded. “I did, when I was younger. Sometimes, I actually revisit my old sketches and think I’ll give a shot when I get tired of playing superhero.”

 

“It’s pretty, especially for something you just put together in an hour.” He narrowed his eyes and stared at the dress with a disapproving look on his face. “It’s really fucking thin, though. You’re totally wearing that over the suit, yeah?”

 

When she shakes her head, he groans and makes a face that actually amuses her. Possessed by a powerful demon and sick as he is and he still manages to make her laugh. “No. I’m wearing it by itself. It’ll help, trust me.”

 

“Okay, sure, try and seduce the fucking demon, Shuri, great tactic.”

 

She smirks. “What are you so afraid of?”

 

His face fell and he waited a beat before he answered her.

 

“I’m afraid he’ll see you damn near naked and he’ll make good on his promise to fuck you within an inch of your life.”

 

That sobers her, almost to the point she doesn’t want to do this anymore. Maybe they can think of another way to trap the demon,  or maybe she doesn’t have to wait until he pushes forth and collect the blood. Maybe…

 

“I won’t let him,” Tony said, his voice quiet and a little shaky, but absolutely firm. “I won’t let that fucker touch you again. I promise you that.”

 

“Okay.” She believed him. She trusted he’d do whatever possible to keep the thing at bay long enough that she wouldn’t have to do anything besides maybe offer a kiss or two. She could handle a kiss. But the thought of copulating with that thing made her whole body want to turn in on itself.

 

“So we can do it your way,” he said, resigned to it. She feels bad about the toll this is taking on him, both mentally and physically and wishes she could make this easier. “But you better fucking stab me in the neck if I so much as look at you in the wrong way.”

 

“You won’t hurt me,” she said, offering him a little smile, something to reassure him. It works, just enough that he lies back and closes his eyes once more, his fingers grasping the edge of the pew as he struggles to keep control.

 

She finishes her dress easily enough and draped it over her shoulder then slipped past the altar to the door that led to the vestry. On the opposite side was the sacristy where various holy objects still sat, cloaked in dust and unused for however long the area had been abandoned. But in the vestry she found large jars of wine and several small bottles of oil to light the lamps that hung around the nave. She hauled them out a few at a time and lifted one of the jars from the floor onto the elaborate table that stood on the altar. There was a small crucifix she could wear and a pair of golden chalices in the sacristy, and she filled one halfway with enough wine to drink, leaving the other to collect blood.

 

When that was done, she started to dress, wiping her body down quickly with a little of the water left in Tony's half finished bottle and dabbing a bit of anointing oil on her chest and throat. She slipped the gown over her head and let it settle around her like a cloud, the gossamer pooling around her feet and spreading out across the floor. The neckline was cut a bit large in her haste, but she let it fall, exposing her shoulders and modest cleavage. She couldn't see her reflection, but she could guess she looked ethereal, the affect completed when she draped the lace around her head to serve as a veil. The herb wreath took but a few minutes to wind into a circle and she pushed it over the lace like a crown and slipped the crucifix around her neck and into the bodice of her dress. 

 

Tony still sat on the pew with his eyes shut tight, his hands gripping the splintered wood as he fought to keep the demon back long enough for Shuri to prepare. She called to him softly and for a moment, he seemed to lose every bit of focus.

 

"Holy shit."

 

She glanced down to her bare feet and smoothed the dress out in front of her. "Think it'll work?"

 

"Fuck me."

 

Shuri almost laughed, as dire as the situation was. And then her breath caught when he got up on shaking, wobbly legs and walked over to her slowly. 

 

"If this doesn't work, nothing will. Jesus." He licked his dry lips and his eyes swept from the bottom to the top of her, lingering on the slender curves that were just barely visible through the thin fabric. And his eyes stopped at her small breasts, his chest hitching as he struggled to catch his breath. "You're absolutely beautiful. Yeah, this is...this is gonna work, we've gotta do this now."

 

"I thought you told me this was a terrible idea," she retorted, teasing just a bit. He offered her a little grin, dark and sly and Shuri thought to herself that had this been any other situation, she may have teased him even more. She had a vision of herself sliding up to him in something as thin as this or even thinner, pressing her body to his and leaning in to whisper in his ear. She had no idea what she would have said, only that she'd have let her breath tickle across his ear and neck and she'd trail her fingers up his chest, dancing across the arc reactor and slip into the notch of his t shirt.

 

But now wasn't the time to be thinking of things like that. And she had no idea why she was thinking of them in the first place. _He doesn't even like me,_ she thought, but from the look in his eyes, worn as his face was and as exhausted as he had to be, she knew for a fact that he at least wanted her. 

 

"Yeah, and I thought you were wearing a bra under that thing," he mutters, his fingers flexing and unflexing as she got closer. He seemed to want to reach out and touch and she decided that if he did, she'd let him. His hand moved up slowly, grasping the soft gossamer fabric between his fingertips and she thought she saw his hands shaking. "Fuck, Shuri. You're not wearing panties either?"

 

She shook her head. He groaned, scooted back to the pew, and resolutely sat down again. "I figured if I were going to entice a demon I'd have to go all the way."

 

"You may as well be naked," he growled out, his eyes flashing dangerously and she could tell he was losing control. "May as well take that little thin piece of a dress off and let it all show."

 

Shuri pressed a palm to her chest and pushed the crucifix down into her flesh, the sharp edges bringing her just enough pain that she could clear her mind a bit. And yet, she couldn't stop from smirking and tilting her head, the veil falling across her bare shoulder prettily. 

 

"Do you want me to, Tony?"

 

He swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a low moan. "Goddamn it, kid, _stop._ I can't...I can't fight him when you're doing that, I can't-"

 

Shuri glanced back to the altar and the ashes, the chalices ready, the candles lit. Five spells danced around in her brain and the cross at her breast felt cold, heavy, and solid against her skin. She could do this. She could trap this thing and they could fix this and then they could go home and-

 

She didn't know what they'd do when they got home, but she wanted a chance to get there.

 

"Don't fight him, Tony," she said, in a low measured voice. He shook his head and frowned, his displeasure coming through in a soft cry. 

 

"I don't wanna hurt you, Shuri. I don't want _him_ to hurt you, I-"

 

"He won't. _You_ won't. Trust me." She smiled, reached out her hands and took his between hers and squeezed them tightly. He nodded, trembling, and sucked in a hard breath before closing his eyes.

 

And then, he let go.

 

* * *

 

There was a split second of absolute darkness where Shuri second guessed everything she'd done to this point. But the candles flickered back on and Tony's eyes were the red of the demon inside him and she was ready. She still held his hands, the freezing cold burning her skin, but she ignored the pain and kept holding on.

 

"Have you changed your mind, little princess?"

 

She fought to keep her face passive and her body as relaxed as she could. She couldn't give away that she wanted nothing more than to gut him right where he sat and let his innards spill onto the church floor. Instead, she gave him a demure smile and glanced up at him as he stood, batting her lashes just enough.

 

"I have. I want to apologize," she said and she saw him smile, terrible and hateful as he always was. And yet, there was a sort of comfort in the familiarity of it. She was slowly getting used to that face and those eyes and the voice that threatened to drag her heart out her chest and toss it into altar behind her. "I was foolish, my lord."

 

"Yes, you were. But you've seen the error of your ways, haven't you?"

 

She nodded once more and stepped back a little so he could see her dress. His eyes dropped to the thin fabric and the outline of her naked body beneath, illuminated by the golden candlelight and the moon outside. A low groan thrummed in his throat and she smiled, showing only a bit of teeth as he slid his hands out of hers and grasped her waist roughly. 

 

"My sweet, pure, precious bride," he cooed. She wanted to roll her eyes. She'd show him just how sweet she was.

 

"Do you want to start our binding?" she asked him, pulling him back toward the altar. "I've poured us a cup of wine for us to share."

 

He followed her towards the altar and sifted his long, black fingers though the ashes there as he waited for her to bring him the chalice. She held it with both hands and lifted it to his mouth, allowing him to take a long drag of the wine.

 

"The peons of this village were worth nothing except for their exceptional wine," he said, and Shuri smiled. She wondered if she could get him to tell her what happened to the villagers. She asked and he pulled her close, lifted the chalice from her hands and commanded her to drain it. So she did. Another sat beside it, ready for the spell she would have to cast on him.

 

"They are all dead, as you well know."

 

"Yes, I'd assumed. Did you devour them?"

 

He laughed, and it sent shudders through her whole body that she fought to suppress.

 

"No. I have no taste for human flesh. Pathetic beings you are, you don't even taste good." Shuri pursed her lips, and didn't really have to pretend to be offended. If he wanted her to bear his child, he could at the very least pretend that she'd taste good. "I don't mean you, my sweet. You are but a victim of your birth. But we'll fix that as soon as the babe takes. I cannot make you my queen until you have his blood within your own."

 

"Why?"

 

"Because the process would kill you. And I do not wish you dead. You understand that this is why I had to show you the vision of your future if you disobey me?" Shuri nodded.

 

"I do. I'm sorry, again."

 

He shook his head. It was odd how sweet he was being since she'd 'agreed' to his proposal. It was disconcerting and she had to keep her wits sharp so she didn't fall prey to his smooth, silky words. When he wasn't trying to kill her or his host, he was alarmingly suave. "And I said not to apologize. You were mistaken. You have seen the truth and you know what is best. And that's all I asked." The demon looked down at his physical form and let Shuri go long enough so that he could pull at the pants he wore. "I must admit that your friend would not have been my first choice of hosts," he commented and Shuri shrugged.

 

"Why didn't you wait for better?"

 

He seemed at a loss for words at that. "Perhaps," he said, "this man was the easiest to take on. And he seems to have quelled his fight. Did you convince him that it would in his best interest to be more agreeable."

 

"I did," she said with a smile. She hoped it came across as sly and secretive. "I promised him he would be one of my chosen few once your will is done."

 

"Good girl."

 

"And my family? My mother and brother? My friends?"

 

"Every one of your people will flourish in this New Order," he tells her. She knows it's meant to serve as a promise but she honestly doesn't trust the creature as far as she can throw him. He'd probably take what he needed of her and then cast the shell of her into the fire with the rest of her loved ones. But she let him lie to her and she pretended to eat it up like the sweetest dessert. "No harm will come to those you deem worthy. You only have to choose. And wisely, I must remind you. They will be integral to creating a better world. They must be comfortable with my legions inhabiting this earth and taking their daughters to procreate with."

 

"Ah. I'd wondered. So we will populate the word in our likeness, then?" 

 

He grinned. "You and I will have but one child, sweet one. I would not tax you to bear anymore of my seed. It will be a difficult birth, even with my blood inside you. But you will survive. No, my legions are not as strong as I and not as deadly. Your women will survive the birth of many nephilim."

 

She mouthed the word daintily and smiled up at him. "Thank you for forgiving me," she said softly, and leaned up to kiss his cheek. When she gasped, pulled back, and rubbed her burned lips, he clucked in apology.

 

"Since I am to be your husband I suppose I should adjust to suit you." He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his bare chest and the flesh there heated up slowly, until he was the normal warmth of a regular man. It threw her off. If she didn't pay attention to the red eyes or the extra demonic tremor to his voice, she could pretend this was just Tony. And so she did, for the minutes it took him to pull out a cord and grab her hand and bind them together.

 

"And now we begin the binding," he told her. Shuri remained passive and let her palm slide against his. This is just Tony. No one but Tony. T _ony. Tony Stark. He doesn't like you much but he apparently wants to fuck you silly._ She almost giggled. _I bet he's good in bed, for an older man,_ she thought, as the demon started to chant. She had no idea what language this was in, only that the energy in the church began to lift and swell as he continued. She fluttered her eyes a few times, the urge to close them and fall asleep overwhelming. Did he want her unconscious? She refused to fall prey to that and kept her thought process going. 

 

Tony Stark. Anthony Edward Stark. 50 years old, single and childless, a billionaire. Previously a womanizing playboy, now a superhero and defender of the Earth. A good man by all accounts, even if his arrogance and sarcasm sometimes caused a bit of animosity between clashing personalities. Her arms felt numb and her eyes were so heavy. She blinked once, then twice and mentally shook the sleep from her brain. 

 

_What kind of lover is he?_

_Tony or the demon?_

_Tony, of course._

 

_The demon though? Could she stand to do that? Could she fuck a demon?_

 

That thought made her stomach turn. _No. **Tony**. I could fuck Tony. I could have him any way I wanted him. He could be at my mercy, if I truly used my assets to ensnare him. _

 

_But would you? Or would you rather him come to you? Wouldn't you want him to beg at your feet for a chance to taste you? To have you? To touch..._

 

The candles seemed to burn higher and brighter and suddenly, the lethargy that had cloaked her mind was lifted abruptly. The chanting had stopped and the air was still once more and the demon regarded her with blatant and unrepentant hunger.

 

And this, she knew, was when she'd have to act.

 

Not just yet, Shuri, she told herself, as he pulled her flush against him and cradled her neck with the back of his big hands. The face seemed sharper, the teeth longer and darker, and she swore she saw horns sprouting form his head. She was reminded then of the form he'd taken in her vision and that prompted her to remember to ask his name.

 

"Husband," she started, but he placed a finger on her lips.

 

"Not yet, my sweet," he said. "I won't be your husband until you give your flesh over to me."

 

"Oh...well...if you are to be my husband, what should I call you? I don't have a name for you."

 

She knew there was only a tiny chance he'd actually give her his real name. And she was right; the name he decided to use seemed be some sort of replacement. 

 

"I go by many. But my true name, you cannot know until our child is born."

 

"I understand."

 

"Good." He pressed a kiss to her palm and she swallowed, preparing herself to kiss this creature in front of her. _Tony. Just pretend you're kissing Tony._ "You may call me Hgog."

 

No sooner did he tell her this did he tug her forward and bend her back, until she was near to lying on the ashes at the alter's table. "Hgog...my lord...will you take me here?"

 

"I will. And now. I must have you now." He growled and opened her mouth with his thumb, then leaned down and kissed her.

 

It took everything within her not to push him back and scream. No matter how much she tried pretending she was kissing Tony instead (or anyone else) she couldn't. This was like kissing death itself, like tasting decay and ruin and it made her body feel sour and putrid. She couldn't push away or she would ruin the moment. She could only let out the barest of whimpers into his mouth, something he must have mistaken for signs of pleasure. He hauled her bodily up to the table and pushed the wine chalice to the side, moving his hips between her spread thighs and pressing forward forcefully. She grasped at his shoulder and pulled back a bit, and his lips left her mouth, trailed down her chin and to her throat. Shuri ran fingertips up his spine and kept up the noises, her free hand stretching back toward the ashes where she kept a dagger. She dug around blindly until her fingers hit cool metal and she snatched it from the bottom, paying no attention to the soot beneath her nails or the pain in her shoulder from overexerting herself.

 

And just as his hands moved to lift her dress, she pushed her palm up to his face and collided with bone, then slid the dagger around, blade forward, and plunged it into his chest as hard as she could.

 

Hgog let out a howl unlike anything she'd ever heard, the volume of it so loud she thought she'd go deaf. But she had no time to waste. She grabbed the clean chalice and pushed it underneath the wound as her bloody hand grasped a handful of the ashes, salted and anointed with oils, and mixed them in with the blood. It all happened so fast; the demon barely had time to attack before Tony came fighting through, ripping the dagger from his chest and plunging it bodily into his torso. He howled, as did Hgog, but didn't stop, stumbling back off the altar and onto the floor. There was some sort of struggle between the two as the bull/goat hybrid tried to push through the human body of Tony. But the man had caught the demon off guard and Shuri had begun to chant, slicing her own palm with the edge of her crucifix and dribbling the blood across the floor. She drew a quick pentagram, and smeared a bit of the blood and ashes from the chalice onto the circle.

 

“Now!” what sounded like Tony yelled, and Shuri dipped her fingers into the cup of blood, dripping a bit on the altar and salt in her haste, before she stumbled down the steps and over to Tony. She smeared the mixture on her fingers onto his heaving chest, pressing her hand there and pushing hard. Blood gushed from the various wounds, but she ignored them, the howls of pain, and the fight between man and demon as she chanted, over and over. 

 

_"Adiuro vos unde venisti. Eaque ego in te, ut custodiant continebat. Adiuro te signa cecidit."_

There is no sound for an instant, as if all the air was sucked out of the church. The candles sputtered but didn't go out, and the wind outside stopped howling, and Shuri finally could breathe. For the first time in hours she didn't fell like she was suffocating. She collapsed onto the floor and fought to catch her breath. Tony sat to her right, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. The wounds on his torso had already nearly knit closed and he'd stopped bleeding, but he still winced in pain. His hand shook as it closed over his face and she scooted over to see what the problem was. Blood dripped down his face and lip and he opened his eyes, blinking slowly as he moved his hand from his face. She gasped when she saw the damage.

 

“Oh Bast,” she moaned, her face twisting in remorse as she noticed the twist in his nose bridge. “I broke your nose. Shit, Tony, I’m sorry.”

 

He tried to laugh but nothing came out but a low whimper and Shuri shushed him, holding his head as she pressed gently at his nose. “You did what you had to, kid. Distracted the bastard long enough that you could bind him down. A broken nose is the least of my worries. I mean, you stabbed me in the fucking chest.”

 

“Yeah, and that healed up just fine, didn't it?" She smoothed her hands along his chest and felt nothing more than a bruise where the stab wound had been. "Your face wasn't part of the plan. But I know how vain you are. You'll hate having a crooked nose,” she said, and her humor seemed to lift his spirits just a little. That was better than nothing.

 

“I’ve got enough money and a good doctor who knows how to fix the shit if need be. Just pop that son of a bitch into place for me. And try not to get any blood on your pretty dress, okay?”

 

She chuckled a bit. That was a lost cause, as blood and ashes already dotted the once white fabric. Shuri drew in a breath and hesitated on the bridge of his nose, her fingers trembling as she felt the partition of where the bone had snapped. At least it wasn’t too badly broken, just enough that all she had to do was put it into position and tape it up a bit. There should still be tape in that first aid kit. At least there was last she checked.

 

She realized she was trying to distract herself, the idea of putting broken bones back into place making her queasy. “Hey. It’s okay,” Tony said quietly, and he placed his hand over hers, his calloused palm so cold it made her shiver. “I’ve had worse. Trust me.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Count of…five, I guess. Three isn’t enough. Count of five and then-“

 

“Yeah. Okay. Okay, count.”

 

He started down from five, slowly, and her fingers tightened on his bridge, her breath held all the while. The second he got to one, she pressed her fingers together fast and hard and his nose snapped right into place, though not without a howl from Tony. His eyes watered, and his breathing came out shallow and shaky and she almost wanted to vomit. She’d survived making out with a demon, but she couldn’t snap a nose back into place. And the thought made her want to laugh so badly. So she did, a little bit anyway, her hand still cradling his nose and her knees supporting his weakened body.

 

“Glad to know someone got a kick out of that,” he grumbled, but there was no anger behind it and she knew he was trying to tease the fear out of her. “You did good. I’ll still be my pretty self once this is all said and done.” He paused for a second, his skin paling and Shuri watched him with trepidation.

 

“Tony?”

 

He swallowed hard again and shook his head, wincing, and then opened his hazel eyes, terror still lingering there, exhaustion rimming the edges. “He’s trying to fight his way out of the binding. Son of a bitch. _Fuck_.”

 

Shuri wanted to cry. “Is he hurting you? Tony…I can find another spell to shut him up while I get the other going, I just-“

 

“No, no I’m…no more blood for you, missy. Just chain me up and mark me.”

 

So she drug him to the wall after she taped his nose up and spread his arms out wide, chaining him to the sturdy wall of the church. Satisfied that even if the demon managed to get free of the spiritual bindings that Tony’s body wouldn’t be strong enough to lunge after her, she went back to the altar and cupped a handful of ashes, marking his forehead and chest in a sign of the cross.

 

"Do you have the spells all set?" he asked, watching as she dusted her hands off and moved to gather the rest of what she needed. She nodded. 

 

"I do." She had some memorized even, though the grand finale would require the grimoire to remember every line. "Why?"

 

"Just double checking," he said. "What's the process like?"

 

She gave him a quick rundown of exactly what she had to do and he followed along as best he could with a demon dancing around in his head, desperate to get out. When she told him about the chant, he insisted on looking at the grimoire so she brought it over and opened up the section for him, watching as he scanned the spell's words intently. And then he looked up at her seriously.

 

"You need his name. You've got his blood and that's enough to break the tie, but you're gonna need his name."

 

Shuri opened her mouth and then shut it because she'd hoped she wouldn't need something like that but had a feeling she would. She groaned, and sighed. How in the world would she work that out of him? There were descriptions of demons in the front of the grimoire she'd skimmed, but she had no real way of knowing who was whom. And it wasn't as if he'd admit to her who he was. 

 

"Okay. So I get his name. You think this will work?"

 

Tony licked his lips and was silent for too long. "It's gonna have to, kid. It's all we've got." Shuri felt her kimoyos vibrate and she glanced down to find that it was twenty till 3. It was time to get started on the main event. But before she could turn back toward the altar and gather the things she needed, she heard Tony call to her once more.

 

“Shuri.”

 

She turned around and saw resignation in his eyes. There was still fight there, but there was some sort of acceptance of the fact that he might not actually make it out of this alive. And he was prepared to die, if it meant she’d survive. She hated the feeling in her belly at that realization.

 

“Yes, Tony.”

 

“Go get the oil.”

 

She stilled. “What?”

 

“The oil. For the lanterns? Go get it.”

 

She didn’t like where this was going at all, but she didn’t feel like she could disobey. So she dug around behind the pulpit until she found the old glass bottle half full of lamp oil and brought it back to him.

 

“What am I-“

 

“Toss it on me.”

 

Her stomach churned. “No. Fuck, no, I’m not doing that, I’m not-“

 

“Do it, goddamn it!” he yelled, his eyes widening and for a moment she wondered if the demon was back but no, it was Tony, at his wit’s end and terrified and begging her to kill him if she had to. She wanted to scream so badly but couldn’t, her horror coming out as a choked sob.

 

“Tony, _please_ , no. I've got a gun if I really have to do it. I can’t do _that_. _I can’t._ ”

 

He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head, and she saw a tear slip down his worn face. God, he looked so old, so ragged and bruised and bloodied. And somehow, she still thought him beautiful, even more so since he would go this far to keep her from harm.

 

“You have to, sweetheart.” It was the first time he’d ever called her anything that endearing and she pulled the word close to her heart just in case she never heard it from him again. “You have to. If you don’t manage to pull this off…whatever you’ve gotta do, if that doesn’t work, you’ve gotta kill me. And you gotta make sure you do it with fire. A bullet won't work.”

 

“Fire won’t kill him, either.”

 

“No. I know that. But he won't make it too far on this earth without a body and if you destroy mine-“

 

“What’ll stop him from possessing someone else? What if Steve finds us and he takes over him?” 

 

Tony shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t…look. If the spell doesn’t work-no, Shuri, look at me-if it doesn’t work, you toss one of those candles this way and you run like hell. _Run._ Don’t stop until someone finds you. Okay? Just run.”

 

The sob threatened to break out her chest and swallow her whole but she drew in a ragged breath and nodded one time.

 

“Okay.” She opened the bottle of oil with shaking hands and started to pour a little around his feet, up his calves and knees, soaking the dirty, torn pants. “Fuck. Fuck this.”

 

He had the nerve to laugh, pained as it was and it made her belly hurt even worse. More oil up his chest, but careful not to smudge the ashes painted there, then over his arms and neck and finally, she doused his head in the little bit left.

 

“That’s it. That’s all of it.” She swallowed back tears and glared him down. “I’m not going to have to do this,” she said, because she refused to. She would find a way to break the possession, she would untie their bonds, she would free him. She refused to turn him into a human torch.

 

“God I hope not,” he murmured. Shuri reached to touch his face and he leaned into it, his mouth quivering as he tried not to cry.

 

"When we get out of here, you owe me macarons. Fresh from Paris, Stark. I want strawberry and pistacio."

 

He gave a weak wheeze of a laugh, nodded one time, and then he tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and passed out.

 

* * *

 

It took her but a minute to gather everything she needed.

 

In the minutes that followed, she skimmed the grimoire for instructions on what to do and how, and so she drug her bucket of salts over to the middle of the church floor, perpendicular to the altar, and drew her circle. She kept glancing over to where Tony was chained, still unconscious, but nothing happened as she set up.

 

The spell was even more difficult that she'd thought, but she powered through it, repeating the words in her head over and over until she felt comfortable with the translation. The only thing she didn't have was the name needed. Hgog, she could tell, was just a pseudonym, and she cursed under her breath, wishing she had google or some sort of demonic directory she could use to identify the one inside Tony. If she called the wrong name during the spell, it would null the entire thing and Tony would be lost. She would be lost, the whole world would if what he'd said was right.

 

She couldn’t let that happen.

 

She flipped back to the front of the grimoire and read a description of the demons listed but none seemed to match the one she'd encountered. There was no mention of a Hgog or anything built like a bull with goat's hooves. And then she heard the chains rustle and she knew Tony was still gone. This wasn’t her friend. This was her would be husband.

 

“I offered you the world,” he began, in that same pitch dark voice that raised her hackles and made her eyes water. “I would have made you queen of everything, and you betray me? For the life of a pathetic, weak man?”

 

She raised her eyes and kept her glare level, though her insides felt like they were fighting to come out.

 

“I owe you nothing. You are no one to me.”

 

He laughed, something mocking and cruel and gone was the groveling, desperate spirit that begged for her hand and for her kiss. He was getting stronger by the moment. He would kill Tony soon, then drag her to the altar and force her to consummate their union if she didn’t stop this now. Her hands grasped at the dagger to her left and the blood and ashes to her right and she placed them firmly before her. There was no time to waste. It would be 3 soon, in only a few minutes if she had timed this out correctly, and she had to move _now_.

 

“You think,” he continued, taunting her as she kept her eyes on him, “that I cannot move you. That because you do not worship at the altar of this god that I cannot possess you.”

 

“I don’t think much of you at all,” Shuri commented, hoping her tone was firm and dismissive. She liked to think she mostly succeeded, though her mind was split in several different directions at once. S _tart the spell, start the spell, start the spell, start the spell._ She could worry about the name when she got to it. She would eventually figure out what it was if she could just get started.

 

"You won't succeed," he told her, mocking and vicious. "You will destroy this body and the man that once owned it. And then I will drag you by your feet to the altar and I will fuck you until you scream and bleed."

 

"Okay," she said under her breath, mostly blocking out his violent words. They shook her only a bit because she knew if he were to get loose, he would do exactly as he said. He detailed just how brutal the consummation would be and Shuri began her invocation. This wasn't her god, but he would listen, she hoped, if only to keep the humans that were made in his image and in those of his collegues, safe. And she said a quick prayer to Bast as well. May the goddess keep her safe and give her strength. She was going to need it.

 

"Ignore me all you wish, you little bitch," the demon spewed. The voice was darker than it had been, no longer the rich, sugary sweet of the being that wished to wed her. Outside, she could hear the wind began to howl and the candles she lit flickered in the breeze that stirred as she started the first lines.

 

"I'm going to split you open. I'm going to tear you to pieces and bleed you dry. I'll fuck you and then fuck Tony, too." Shuri's eyes snapped up and she nearly lost her spot in the spell. She'd never told the demon his name. If he had Tony's name, he had more control and more power and she would have to work faster. She narrowed her eyes, and kept going. "I'll rip his heart out and feed it to you. The heart of coward, is what he is. Why would you work to save him?"

 

When she didn't answer, he changed tactics. 

 

"Shuri...sweet girl. Listen to me. You cannot stop this."

 

She ignored him still and finished with the first part of the spell, pricked her finger and spread her blood across her palms.

 

"I can give you whatever you wish. You know I can. Just do as I say."

 

She pressed her palms into the salt of the circle and glanced once more to the grimoire, groaning internally because the pages had flipped from the chant she needed. She thought she'd memorized it, but wanted to be sure. Instead, she was presented with a hierachy of hell, demons and devils and the father of them all. And down the list she skimmed, she caught a word that made her stop short.

 

_Eyes like coals. Skin of molten lead, teeth of gold. The body of a bull. The hooves of a goat. Face of a mans and the voice of terror._

 

Fuck. She glanced up at the demon in front of her, who realized she'd recognized him and began to pull hard against the chains, cursing and screaming when the name in front of her snapped into focus.

 

Haagenti. His name was Haagenti. Shuri let the calm of knowing overtake her and the spell in her head came to the forefront as if it were written across her eyelids. She closed them tight and leaned forward, and as the demon snarled and ranted, she started to chant.

 

_Hold on Tony. I've got this!_

 

Haagenti's voice blurred with Tony's as the spell began to take affect. The man fought back valiently all the while, a few words of encouragement here and there between the curses and angry sputters of the demon. The mixture of voices made her head spin and she tried hard to keep them separated, but it was so difficult. Even still, Tony fought on. She wiped tears from her cheeks with her shoulder, and ignored the pain that began to spread in her belly or the fire that burned in her chest. Every line she chanted made her feel sick and aching. She wanted to quit so badly but she couldn't. She had to keep going. She gulped in air and kept her palms flat on the circle as she finished and moved to the last chant.

 

Six times six. She had to repeat it six times, in six rounds, in full or Tony would die and the unbinding would be incomplete.

 

_Corpus ex profundo eicio Haagenti penitus relegant, corpus ex profundo eicio Haagenti penitus relegant..._

 

The wind outside howled and the stained glass windows burst. She could feel the presence of other demonic spirits, legions under Haagenti's control. But they couldn't touch her. The herbs around her head had been blessed and anointed and would keep her safe as she kept going. Every spirit that reached toward her was evaporated like mist and nothing could stop her from keeping on. She would keep Tony alive. She would save him.

 

But, it seemed that Tony would die anyway. Haagenti was stronger than he had been before their ritual. It was almost as if the spell's words were fueling him and giving him strength, and he shifted over several times, snarling and bucking against the chains until one of them broke free from the wall. The stained glass on the floor crunched beneath his feet and he tugged forward and tried to free himself from the second.

 

Shuri kept chanting. Louder, she went on, through the entire spell and again, four times, then five. The chain creaked against the wall and Tony's skin flushed red with exertion until he was no longer man but part bull, part human. Shuri felt tears soak her face but she wouldn't look away. She started on the sixth round smoothly, the lines tumbling from her mouth expertly as if she'd been born to do this. And on the very last word, the demon broke free.

 

She nearly jerked her hands from the circle in terror, convinced now that she would die a slow, painful death. Her body shook piteously and her mouth flapped open and closed dumbly, but for only a moment, the red bled back into hazel, and Tony pushed through.

 

"Shuri! You have...to...you have to...fire! Do it, now, do-"

 

There was no more. It would be his last words to her she knew. He was right and Bast, she hated that he was. She said a soft prayer in her heart to her goddess for Tony's soul and blessed him for his courage, kicked her leg out from beneath her skirts, and toppled over the candelabra as she began chanting the last line.

 

_Six times. Fast as lightning. Keep your hands pressed to the center of the circle even if it hurts. Do not let anything take your attention away from your spell. Keep going._

 

The fire hit oil and Tony went up in flames and then he screamed and Shuri cried. 

 

Six times. One...two...

 

She couldn't understand anything he was garbling, only clips of her name and the screams of someone being burned alive. She sobbed and chanted and her hands burned along with him. She shook on the third line, almost vomited on the fourth, did vomit on the fifth. And she shook her head violently as the body collapsed and writhed on the ground before her, the heat of the fire singing everything next to it except her. It stretched up to the ceiling until all Shuri could see were the pained, frantic hazel eyes of Tony Stark, engulfed in flames and dying. Dying, dying, dying, but not quick enough.

 

_Oh Bast, oh God, please, let him die quickly, please have mercy._

 

She swallowed spit mixed with bile and vomit and blood and chanted out the last line. One last time, the sixth, loud and clear and then the circle glowed blood red and it too went up into flame before quickly extinguishing.

 

Shuri crawled back from the circle and clasped her scorched hands across her ears and rocked as Tony continued to burn.

 

And she screamed with him.

 


	3. III

  _Is it any wonder I can't sleep?_

_All I have is all you gave to me_

_Is it any wonder I found peace through you?_

_Turn to the gates of heaven, to myself be damned_

_Turn away from light_

_It's not enough, just a touch_

_It's not enough_

**✙✙✙**

**Eye | Smashing Pumpkins**

* * *

 

 

It seemed to take forever but the fire finally burned out.

 

Shuri refused to move from where she sat curled up in the corner, arms wrapped tightly around her bruised knees, her body shaking in the cold of the still church. Candlelight still flickered around the altar and the pews, while the moon outside streamed through the broken windows like a beacon. And Tony’s burned, still smoking body lay on the floor on the other side, dead and no longer writhing or screaming in agony.

 

She wanted to throw up again at the thought, but she had nothing inside her left. She knew she’d never get those screams out her head, or the look on his face as the flames took hold. She’d tried to block it all out, but it was no use. Those screams would haunt her the rest of her life.

 

Her legs were cramping when she worked up the courage to move. She would avoid the body, but at the very least she could go back to vestry and get the tracker, make sure everyone knew she was still alive. Tony wasn’t. That made her hurt all over and she felt tears slip down her cheeks again, though she was sure she had nothing left to cry. She was so thirsty, too, her body screaming for water or wine or anything she could guzzle down. She almost couldn’t work up the energy to lift the closest thing to her-the wine bottle- but the pain in her throat from inhaling smoke and screaming forced her to pour a glass anyway, her hands shaking so violently from the cold that she almost spilled it.

 

The first few sips were hurried and she coughed up most of it, before her body relaxed just enough that she could take small sips. And the sips turned to gulps until she’d warmed herself a little just from the alcohol. At least she wasn’t thirsty anymore and her head didn’t hurt so badly.

 

She grabbed the tracker from the vestry, snatched the moth eaten tablecloth from the altar and wrapped it around her tight. It was early morning here and probably very late night back home, but someone would be up once she pressed the button. Her fingers shook as she pressed it down hard and she struggled not to cry again, the sight of Tony’s body still in her peripheral. But then she heard it-a low groan, like the kind from someone who’d been punched hard in the gut, and she stilled in both fear and anticipation, adrenaline running high once more. Her eyes flickered up to the blackened body and she swore she saw it move.

 

Her mind had to have been playing tricks on her. Had to have been. He was dead. Dead dead dead dead _dead_.

 

With muscles clenched so tight they could snap, she sat where she was and watched for a very long, very tense minute until she saw a hand stretch out and reach, though for what she didn’t know. And she heard the groan again, and low enough that if she hadn’t been listening for it, she wouldn’t have heard her name.

 

“Shuri…”

 

It was Tony. There was no bleed to the voice, no cold, demonic edge to it. Just Tony, exhausted and spent and still in there, in that burned up body and she almost sobbed again. Oh Bast, if he was still alive and in that condition...she struggled with the very real fact that she’d probably actually have to kill him for real this time. She still had Bruce’s gun. It would be clean and quick, this time. But she didn’t think she could handle it again. She really really didn’t want him to be dead, nor did she want to have to kill him.

 

“Shuri?”

 

He called for her again and she stumbled over then, though mostly on autopilot, the glass of near empty wine still in hand. Her feet barely touched ground as she cleared the distance between them, and she almost shrieked when his head turned, slow and creaking, to glance at her. Hazel eyes in a blackened face stared up at her curiously, the mouth below opening to say something else, but there was a cough and a great bit of wheezing as black dust came from his mouth and lungs.

 

“Tony?” She knelt down at him and her shaking hands hovered above his face, his neck, his chest. She brushed away a bit of soot and ash and the light of his arc reactor shone through, bright and brilliant in the dim light, and she almost wept.

 

“Is that wine?” he wheezed and she nodded, brushed off more soot from his lips, and lifted the chalice to his mouth to drink. He took the first few sips with a pained grimace–or, as pained as she could see through so much ash-before draining the cup and sighing.

 

“I could use a lot more of that,” he said, his voice still thick but getting clearer.

 

She hopped up from the floor and ran over to the jug of wine, filled the chalice again and again until he’d drained almost the entirety of what they had left. She settled back on the stone floor and watched him, as he breathed in and out, as his hands struggled to lift and wipe the soot out his eyes. Shuri moved her legs behind her and started to help him, dusting his face and watching as dark, blackened scales fell away from pink, fresh flesh. She grabbed the remaining bottles of water from the forgotten first aid kit and leftover fabric from her sewing and spent long minutes wiping the ash from his body, stunned as she realized he hadn't been harmed anywhere. Or, if he had, he'd somehow healed until his skin was as new as it ever was.

 

“How...what are...I don’t understand.”

 

He offered her a slight grin, though it looked pained and weakened.

 

“I don’t either. But it’s me.” He struggled to get up but he couldn’t and he flopped back to the floor pitifully. “God, I feel like someone drug me through a cornfield. I can barely move.”

 

“Tony, you were burned alive.” Shuri shook her head and sat the chalice on the floor, cradled his face in her hands. They still shook and she noticed his eyes slipped closed at her touch. “I had to burn you, I had to...I tried, but the spell only broke the hold and-”

 

“Hey. It’s okay, alright, I told you you’d probably have to.”

 

“Did you...were you aware for long, were you-”

 

“Huh?”

 

“The fire.”

 

He understood then, what she was asking without her having to say it aloud.

 

“You mean, did I feel any of that?” He shook his head and the relief that coursed through her was so overwhelming she felt dizzy and weak. “No. I was aware of what was going on. I could see it. I could smell the smoke and...no. I didn’t feel a thing. I guess _he_ did. He nearly beat me bloody as the fire took him. Drove that son of a bitch right out of me and off to whatever part of hell he’s from. And I passed out because I was tired. Still am. But the fire didn’t hurt me, Shuri. I promise.”

 

He lifted his hand again, this time succeeding, and smeared a bit of soot across her cheek but she didn’t care. He was okay. He was alive and he hadn’t had to suffer through being burned like she thought.

 

“Did he hurt you?” he asked. “When he came out of me, did he-”

 

She shook her head. “No. Wherever he went, he never touched me. I didn't even see him after...after the fire."

 

He looked incredibly relieved. “Good.” And then he licked his chapped lips and blinked a few times, as her kimoyo beads beeped loud and clear on her wrist.

 

“What time is it?”

 

Shuri couldn’t remember. “Probably six,” she guessed. The ritual had started at three and the spell probably hadn’t taken that long but she’d been curled up in the corner for at least two hours or more. “There’s no light out, not yet, but…”

 

“I’m starving,” he commented, and he tilted his head, heavily, to kiss her palm. Shuri shivered at the contact but she liked it. It made the churning in her belly subside a little bit.

 

“There’s still some MRE's if you want one. And half of my meal bar.”

 

Tony’s eyes gazed at her longingly, hungrily, as if he were seeing her again for the first time. It made her skin break out in goose flesh and she liked it.

 

“That’s okay. I’m not...I don’t want food.” He licked his lips again and darted his tongue out to taste the skin of her hands. He didn’t seem to mind the dirt and grime caked there, and he groaned a bit when he let her fingers dip to his mouth and trace his lips.

 

“What do you want?” she asked, though his eyes spoke volumes and she could read it clear as day.

 

“You,” he said, reaching out for her with all the strength he had within him. And she went to him, because she wanted him, too.

 

* * *

  

Shuri kissed him slowly and deeply and moaned into his mouth when desire started to unfurl in her belly at the push and pull of his tongue. He tasted bitter, like the wine and scorched, like the fire that had burned him, but she welcomed it all and when she moved to straddle his body, prone on the cold floor, he lifted heavy arms to hold her against him.

 

"You taste so good," she whispered, and he grinned, his hazel eyes blown nearly black. "You taste _alive.”_

 

"So do you," he said. His voice was gravel, deep and heady and so thick with need that it made her clench around nothing. She could feel her body aching with the need to have him right there on the floor of that church and the thought of what they were going to do made her heart pound in anticipation. There was probably some sort of law they were breaking, doing this before the altar and beneath the roof of a holy place, but Shuri didn't care. She needed him and he needed her. Every kiss and every touch fed him and every hitching sigh and breath across his lips gave him life.

 

She didn't feel even the least bit ashamed at how needy she was. It was as if his touch had awoken something in her that only danced beneath the surface. And nearly dying only made that need more acute. She let her head fall back when he slipped his hands beneath her dress and grabbed at her hips, pulling her close to his hardness and digging into the flesh when she pushed her body down to meet him. His cock glided across her wetness, her clit aching to be touched and her body needing to be filled. She'd had lovers before but none of them had made her feel this wild with want. Shuri reached down and grasped him to guide him inside her and she slid down slow, her mouth opening with pleasure and a little pain at how thick he was.

 

"Fuck," she whispered, blinking her eyes furiously when he was seated as far as he could go. Tony trembled beneath her and the hands on her hips dug in hard, to the point of bruising. She didn't care. She wanted a mark of him being here just in case this wasn't real and would never happen again. But it felt so real. Nothing this good could be a figment of her imagination.

 

She lifted up just a bit to start moving, the ache in her core almost unbearable, but Tony hissed and held her still. "No, no, don't..." He shook his head and opened his lust blown eyes to stare at her, licking his lips as he tried to articulate what he needed. "Not yet. I can't move, not yet, please, baby just-"

 

"Okay." She groaned and sat back down and just let the sensation of him filling her give her pleasure. But she needed more. She needed him to move and fuck her and she needed it so bad. She settled for clenching around him and she pushed her fingers into her slick lips below, stroked her clit as she rocked a little on top of him. Tony let out a groan and his head flailed to the side as he lay helpless beneath her, too weak still to move with her. That was alright. She could give him pleasure and take her own at the same time.

 

"I have to move," she panted out, and she pressed her hand to his chest, lifted up again. The drag of his thick cock inside her made her cry out, every nerve between her thighs so sensitive, she knew it wouldn't take but a few rotations of her hips to cum. "Tony, I have to... _oh_...I _have_ to move, I _need_ to-"

 

"Move," he grit out, spreading his thighs slowly. It was the most he could do given the circumstances but it was enough to give her more leverage and she started a slow, hard ride, gasping and grunting out his name with every rise and fall. He cried out and fumbled with the fabric of her dress, pushing it up so he could watch their joining. 

 

"Oh god. Oh fuck me, darling, _please_ , fuck me," he moaned out, over and over, filthy and pure and righteous. There was a shift just as the pleasure that spiraled fast and furiously inside her began to spread and take over, and his skin started to warm and glow beneath the sweat that covered him. Shuri moved faster and harder and gasped out in pleasure when his hips started to move with her, when the strength he took from fucking her grew and built like the orgasm that nearly broke free. His dirty hand reached up to tug down her neckline and her breasts spilled free, prickling in the cool air, a juxtaposition of the heat of her skin. And when she leaned down, at his urging, the angle of his penetration shifted and hit something inside her that made her nearly scream, lights exploding behind her eyes when she came and his mouth on her breast as he followed her.

 

A minute passed, and then another. Tony's arms held her close and tight while she shook atop him, her hips still moving back and forth a little to chase the aftershocks of her orgasm. He let go with a grunt and lay back on the cold stone floor, body trembling but his heart beating strong and his blood warming him once again. He looked more alive than she’d ever saw him, a thin sheen of sweat covering his body, his flesh back to it’s usual olive tone. Shuri let the cool of the floor beneath her seep through the thin dress and into her skin, and she breathed in and out, calming her heartbeat down to almost normal. She turned her head to Tony and caught him watching her, an odd expression on his face.

 

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice echoing in the nave of the church.

 

“Yeah.” He swallowed and reached out to her, threading his fingers with hers. “Are you?”

 

She took note of how her body felt and how her skin still tingled, could feel the stirring of her blood just from him licking his lips and she nodded.

 

“I am. Just...I’m still…”

 

He grinned then, laughed, and rolled over until their skin touched and it was like reigniting a flame. Bast, she was aching, dripping and hungry again for him and she tugged him on top of her this time, moaning in delight when he settled between her thighs.

 

“ _Fuck_ , that feels right,” she said, almost drunk on how delicious it was to be pressed up against him like this.

 

“So right,” he breathed out, leaning down to nip at her neck. He sucked on the skin there until she was sure she’d have a mark, moved his hands along her flesh through the dirtied fabric and rucked it up further until she was mostly naked, gossamer still tangled around her barred breasts. And then he drew a nipple into his mouth again and the most sordid sounds came from her throat, tangled with his name and cries for more.

 

He gave her more. So much more.

 

He moved like a freight train, hard and deep and she held onto him, urged him to go ever harder, just a bit faster. He was solid weight on top of her and warm, the heat of his skin increasing every so often until he was a blazing inferno that pushed and pulled her along the road to pleasure. The dirtied gown was pushed up even higher till it rucked up right beneath her bosom, trapping the crucifix she still wore against her skin. And Tony spread her thighs wide and high, dug his hands into the floor under her and fucked her like she was his salvation.

 

It was rough and painful at times, but it felt so good she didn't care. Teeth and tongue and lips devoured her skin and drank from her lips. He rolled over and pulled her on top again, grabbed the back of her neck and tugged her head back so she could barely move. He took control of her then and pushed his hips up hard and deliberate. The loss of control was an aphrodisiac that pushed her into one orgasm after the next and he coached her through them, his words filthy and unholy but his body sanctified.

 

"Cum for me again, baby, come on. Fuck me. You feel so goddamn good, you feel so good, so tight. Fuck...so hot and so wet and...fuck yes. That's it, yes yes yes, cum. Come for me, baby, come on darling, _cum._ "

 

When she did, he growled like a wild animal and fucked her harder, until he had her on her bruised knees and scarred hands and took her from behind, his hand around her throat and his arm tight around her waist. He wouldn't let her move, insisting that she was his to take and take and take. And in the haze of pleasure and pain that flooded her senses and drugged her, she sobbed out his name over and over and let him have her. 

 

"Make me cum again," she begged him, through wet sobbing tears of pleasure. She couldn't cum again, she would die if she did, but she needed to and so be it if she burst into flames and expired right there on the spot. It would be such a heavenly way to go, wrapped around his cock and pressed into the floor. He withdrew long enough to flip her over and he pulled her hips up, plunged in deep again and took her slow and careful. His eyes glowed in the dim light, his skin shone like amber glass. And he was alive, so alive, hot and heavy and feral.

 

"Tell me you need me," he panted out and she whimpered at every stroke of his cock inside her. "Tell me I'm all you ever wanted."

 

Shuri's mouth fell open and she tried to get the words out but couldn't. He was pushing her to climax so hard and so fast. Tony smacked her ass and pulled her head back to get her attention again.

 

"Not yet, darling, don't cum. Tell me. _Say it,_ say that you're mine."

 

Shuri didn't know nor did she care why he needed her to say it. Maybe it was the heat of passion taking over him. He was almost deranged in how he moved and brutal in how he fucked and it was just right, everything she needed. She could give him that, if that was what it took to bring him to his own pleasure.

 

"I'm yours," she moaned out, and she reached for him, pulled him down to kiss him hard. "I'm yours, Tony. Fuck me, fuck me, I'm yours!" Shuri cried out and lifted her thighs around his waist, dug her nails into the flesh of his back and then in deep. He hissed out but laughed as he moved faster and pushed right against her clit until something snapped and then she was soaring, cumming around him so hard spots floated behind her eyes and her whole body shook violently.

 

And just as she floated off toward the bliss of darkness, she felt him cum inside her, hot spurts of his seed and a scream ripped from his throat that shook the walls of the church.

 

* * *

 

She came to slowly, gently, the first thing in her line of vision the ceiling of the church. It was odd that she was just now noticing there were paintings on that ceiling that stretched across from one side of the nave to the other. They were beautiful things, pastel colored story lines that told the birth of Christ, his ministry, his death. Saints and angels joined him on the spacious mosaic, little details no doubt from each part of the Bible. Shuri wished she could identify more of what was going on. She'd have to brush up on her Christian mythology.

 

The weight of Tony on her chest brought her back to earth. He slept deep and heavy against her but she didn't mind at all. Every inch of her body ached in some way, from the tips of her toes to the ends of her braids. But the ache between her thighs was a different kind. That one wasn't exactly unwanted. In some ways, it was even welcomed. She smiled a little at the sensation that rippled through her when she moved her hips ever so slightly and frissons of pleasure shot through her body. He'd taken her over and over hours before, and yet, she was insatiable.

 

But she let the feeling pass. He needed sleep more than she did and she wouldn't wake him selfishly. 

 

The morning crawled along slowly, until the cold of the floor was just another pressure against her back and the weight of Tony on her body was another part of her. And when she closed her eyes, she thought she heard the sound of aircraft close by. Of course, she could have been hearing things. She'd only eaten half a meal bar and drunk more than a liter of wine over the last 36 hours. 

 

Shuri glanced over at her wrist, the kimoyo beads still snug around it and saw the subtle rise and fall pattern of the quinjet coming into the area. If it was picking up on her kimoyos, then someone was only a few minutes away. Shuri's eyes popped open and she dipped her head down, realizing her lover was still completely naked while she lay there in a gown ultra thin and mostly unfit for wear. 

 

She had nothing to dress him in but her veil, somewhere to the side of her, thrown aside in the fury of their lovemaking. She pulled it to her and tossed the ruined, wilted herb crown over in the corner somewhere far out of sight. She wrapped the lace around his body, making sure to cover everything necessary as best she could. The both of them still were way too undressed to be walking outside, but she was passed the point of really caring. Let them see. They’d all find out anyway what had happened.

 

Shuri lay back against the stone floor and stared up at the ceiling, sunlight filtering through the broken stained glass windows like a kaleidoscope. She let the sound of Tony’s soft breathing calm her nerves as the quinjet finally landed and she heard footsteps and the calling of her name.

 

She would have said something, but it didn’t feel right to make so much noise, so she waited until they were close, until someone broke down the doors of the church and light streamed through, bright and cleansing and pure. She squinted in the glare of it but welcomed its warmth, and a smile flitted across her face.

 

“Shuri?” It was her brother, his voice so thick with worry that it made her belly knot up.

 

She moved like she was underwater, slow and heavy, her limbs feeling soggy and leaden. She hurt everywhere but her body thrummed like a live wire, like she’d just given life to something remarkable. In her peripheral she saw Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff accompanying T’Challa, and she let out the breath she’d been holding. She lifted herself from the floor, pulling Tony upright with her and he only just stirred a bit, nuzzling in the crook of her neck, his arms coming around instinctively to keep her close.  

 

“Shush,” she said softly, only so he could hear. He hummed a bit in his half sleeping state. “They’re here. We’re going home.”

 

“Bibi, are you alright?” T’challa asked again, stumbling forth into the church and she lifted her hand to grasp his, tugging him down so he could wrap her into a strong, relieved hug. “Bast, they said something terrible had happened. They said-”

 

“I’m fine, brother,” she said gently, stroking his face. “I’m alright.”

 

She was. She wasn’t sure how alright, but she was.

 

“Are you hurt anywhere? Do you need anything?” He glanced down at the half naked man she cradled in her arms and then looked at the torn dress she still wore. In the sunshine, it was even more translucent and T’Challa averted his eyes, summoning Steve Rogers over with several blankets. All the while, Shuri clung to Tony protectively, until Natasha was helping Steve lift him from the ground and her brother bundled her in his arms and she could have cried if she had any tears left. But there was nothing there.

 

Outside the church, the sun beamed bright and beautiful, the air crisp and clean. She turned her head to glance behind her and saw just how desolate the church was. It was even older than she'd suspected, rotting from the outside in, the stone and wood crumbling and falling apart. The spires had seemed so high and so foreboding in the dark. In the light of day, they were so small and unassuming. It was so odd to her that just by virtue of the sun, everything around her seemed less frightening and dangerous. 

 

A small black spot caught her eye in her peripheral and she tapped her brother's shoulder, getting his attention. "T'Challa, wait, stop a minute." He did, and she wiggled out his arms, the blankets around her falling to the ground as she walked on wobbly legs toward the little bundle. "Pika?" she called, softly, and the bright green eyes of the cat popped open when he recognized her voice. She smiled in spite of everything and knelt as best she could, reaching her hands out to the cat who only hesitated a moment and then lept forward into her arms.

 

"I'm so glad you survived, sweet thing," she said gently, stroking the fur under his chin. The cat purred as if in relief and snuggled into her chest and Shuri looked up to T'Challa, who regarded her curiously. "A friend," she said by way of explanation. He didn't ask for anything else, and he bent once more to scoop her into his arms again, carrying her and the cat the rest of the way to the aircraft.

 

Bruce waited for them in the quinjet, lack of sleep evident under his kind eyes. He began to cry silently as they pulled the two of them in, sniffling as he kissed Shuri on her forehead and cradled Tony close to his chest for a long moment, letting him go only so Steve and Natasha could tuck him into the plush sofa and wrap him in more blankets. "He's so still," he said pitifully and he wiped his face. "He looks like he'll never wake again."

 

"But he will, Bruce," Steve said kindly. He grasped the man's shoulder and sat beside him as T'Challa started the aircraft, putting the quinjet into autopilot so he could come sit beside Shuri. She snuggled Pika close and kept one hand in Tony's hair, dirt and grime collecting under her nails. 

 

"Are you okay?" Natasha asked her, when she finished tucking the blankets around Shuri's legs. There was so much concern and worry in the older woman's eyes. Shuri let it warm her from the inside out.

 

"I'm fine," she said kindly, though she didn't know if she were or not. The haze from that morning and the hangover from their lovemaking had begun to wear off and all she felt was old. She felt so very old. Pika meowed and slipped from her arms to curl up beside Tony's chest. Shuri let the rise and fall lull her until she was nearly asleep. Her brother sat opposite her and kept his gaze on her as if he were afraid she would disappear. She met his eyes and tried to smile. Nothing came out but a slight grimace.

 

"What happened, Bibi?" he asked, his voice low so only the two of them could hear. Shuri wished she could tell him about the entire ordeal and not the abbreviated version she'd been practicing in her mind. She didn't want to relive all of this again, not even to tell T'Challa what happened. So she shrugged and scratched her nails through Tony's scalp gently, the twist in her mouth closer to tears than a well placed smirk.

 

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

 

* * *

The official story, at least the one they told everyone else, was that Tony had been attacked while in Ukraine and had taken shelter in Romania for the night. And he'd gotten ill while there, lashing out and attacking his teammates and friends who were only trying to help him. Shuri's injuries came from this attack as well as a few unlucky rolls down the twisted road to the village when she sought out help. Of course, she couldn't have known that the village had been deserted for decades.

 

A ghost town is what they called it. The people had left everything and moved after small scale nuclear testing made the area inhabitable. That had happened in the 60's, before Tony was even born, and no one had stepped foot in that part of the country in just as long. They wrote everything off as radioactive poisoning and closed the case and told them not to talk about it to the public anymore. Whatever Shuri had seen and whatever Wanda insisted lurked in that church was just hallucinations from 55 years of radioactivity that still lingered.

 

She knew it was just their way of saving face and pushing the whole ordeal under the rug, but it bothered her that what she'd gone through was simply passed off as the ramblings of a woman half mad with fear and sick from nuclear testing. She knew she wasn't crazy. She hadn't imagined Ioana or Haagenti or anything that happened in that church. Pika was proof of that. The little cat had taken to her instantly and kept her company during her short stay at the hospital. Shuri spent a night in for observation but she was too antsy to keep contained. And with no other injuries but minor bruises and a few scattered cuts, they let her go.

 

Tony hadn't got so lucky. He had head injuries and trauma and no one was sure if they were simply a bump to the head or something far more serious. He got to spend nearly a solid week in bed, bored out of his mind and fighting nightmares, if what Bruce told her as she met him in the hall was true. She'd been fighting her own nightmares, most of them of a pair of red glowing eyes and the feeling of hands so cold they could burn her skin. She'd never shake that sensation, just as she would never quite shake the memory of Tony's body writhing in flame on the floor. She didn't want to think of that right now, though. She gave Bruce a quick hug and knocked on the door to let Tony know she was coming to visit. She hadn't seen him since they'd separated the two of them after flying into New York, and she was surprised that she missed him so.

 

No, she wasn't surprised, the longer she thought on it. He was apart of her now, right down to the very marrow of her bones. He always would be. They'd somehow survived something together that she didn't think anyone in the world would ever believe.

 

"I've been looking for you for days," he said dramatically, grinning as she stepped through the door. "Days, pretty baby. Days."

 

Shuri raised a brow. "Pretty baby?" She snorted out a laugh though her cheeks burned and her heart skipped a beat. "Where'd that come from?"

 

"It's the truth," he said softly, patting the spot beside him in the bed. They'd let him change into his own clothes since he was only a day shy of discharge. "You're pretty and you're a baby."

 

"Ha. I'm no baby, Tony Stark." His eyes shone in the florescent lighting and he seemed to want to say something else but held back. So she changed the subject.

 

“You know,” she said, settling in beside him in the bed. “I think Bruce is half in love with you.”

 

Tony snorted, but there was a bit of color to his cheeks and Shuri knew he’d thought the same thing. “Bruce is half in love with all his friends, honestly. You should see him when he’s around Thor. It’s ridiculous.”

 

She laughed, mostly because it was true and she had seen him gushing about Thor like a love sick boy.

 

“He’ll be half in love with you, too," Tony said. "Cause you saved me.”

 

She shrugged. “I doubt it. I’m not his type.”

 

“Don’t fool yourself, princess. You’re right up his alley. Beautiful, smart, feisty as hell. I’m surprised he didn’t propose on the ride home.”

 

“He was too busy crying about the fact that you were alive to worry about me,” she said but she remembered the way he’d looked at her, in awe, curled up in the quinjet's seats with the dirty gown still on and the ashes still on her knees, Tony's head in her lap. “And anyway, Bruce is more in love with you than anyone.”

 

He shrugged again, lazily, a little tired still. “Maybe. I mean, it’s not unwelcome by any means. I love him, too, you know.” Shuri smiled but something must have passed across her face because he tapped her hand and made her look at him. “Bruce and I have an understanding, I think. I love him, he loves me, we both love whomever. It works. But just because I love Bruce doesn’t mean I don’t have more room in this old ticker for anyone else.”

 

For a moment, she isn’t sure if she’d heard him right, but he kept his eyes on her, never once wavering.

 

“I didn’t even think you liked me,” she finally said, to which he laughed, a quiet, deep chuckle that made her skin warm.

 

“After all of that?”

 

She shook her head. “No I mean, I guessed you maybe liked me a little. After all of that.” She thinks about how he’d taken her on the church floor and is thankful her blush doesn’t show. “I meant before.” Before, when he’d given her grief for everything she said or did and acted as though having her around was a problem. But maybe it hadn’t been. Maybe he just hadn’t known how to take her and it was his way of trying to figure that out.

 

“Oh, no, that’s...that’s not even remotely the problem, kid. The problem-and trust me, I’ve thought about this over and over and tried rooting this out my system, but tough luck-is that I like you too much. _Way_ too much. I mean, you’re what...24, 25?”

 

“24,” she confirms, not mentioning that her birthday is next month. It’s a birthday that for a second back in Romania, she didn't think she’d get to see. But she would. And Tony would get to see it with her.

 

“Right. And I’m 50 and that’s…” He blinked at the math and laughed. “I’m old enough to be your father, Shuri. I’m not supposed to like you like this.”

 

“Like what?” she asked, because she wanted to hear it out his mouth. It made a little sense that if he’d liked her, and liked her beyond what he thought was right, that he would want to try and keep her away from him. Tony thought himself damaged and unworthy. And maybe he was. But she wanted him to know she didn’t mind.

 

“Like this.” He reached down and took her hand in his, traced the lines of her palm and drew in a deep breath. “You are...everything I said. Intelligent beyond belief, incredibly witty and funny, absolutely beautiful. You are _stunning_. First time I ever saw you I had to walk off and reassess my entire fucking life because I’d never seen anyone like you.”

 

That made her cheeks burn again and she barely suppressed her smile.

 

“Look, I’m just saying this: If you think you’re interested in starting something with an old white man, I’m here.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I completely understand if you don’t want shit else to do with me outside of work. I’m cool with the whole ‘let's forget Romania ever happened and never talk about it’ angle, cause I’m really good about not talking about trauma and feelings.”

 

She grinned. “Yes, I know.”

 

“But I’m saying that maybe I wanna...not do that? Maybe I want to talk about it. I need a therapist. Yep, a therapist and a trauma counselor and probably some medication, but I really just...I want to see you more. You know. Outside of this whole Avengers thing.”

 

“You probably also really do need to retire,” she added, for lack of anything better to say because all she really wanted to do was curl up in bed with him and kiss him and fall asleep.

 

“Oh definitely. That was it. That was literally the last mission. I’m too old for this shit now. I’ve done it all; gotten lost in space and taken down aliens and been possessed by demons. Time to hang it up, you know?”

 

“I do. I understand.”

 

“Good.” He grunts and adjusts himself in the bed, cognizant of his still sore ribs and he sighed a bit as he watched her again. “So uh...what do you say, huh? Think the idea of me and you sound okay? I mean, you can have me as long as you want. Probably could squeeze a ring and a few kids out of me, if you really played your cards right.”

 

Shuri couldn’t help but giggle at that. She brushed a strand of hair from his face and let her fingers trail across his temples, down to his jaw and over to his mouth. He pressed a kiss to her fingertips and she sucked in a breath.

 

“I want you,” she said softly, and she swore his eyes lit up at that. “But on one condition.”

 

He raised a brow and laughed. “Of course you come with conditions. What’s the fine print, huh? Do I need a lawyer for this?” She shook her head and bit her lip even though her smile shone through.

 

“Nope. Just...stop calling me kid. Okay? I’m not a kid. I’m a grown woman.”

 

He made a small ‘o’ with his mouth, obviously impressed at her tenacity. “I’ll be damned,” he said, then he wrinkled his brow and shook his head. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to use another term now. I almost was damned. Not fun.” He pulls her close to him then and she settled her head on his shoulder, her hand spreading across his chest. “Alright. No more ‘kid’. ‘Princess’ still okay?”

 

She nodded. “It’s what I am.”

 

“‘Sweetheart’ sound alright?”

 

“I like that. Or _darling_. You called me ‘darling’ at the church. You know, when we…”

 

“Mmhm. Yeah. I actually remember that.” His smile was heady and generous and when he pulled her in to kiss her, she swore she tasted red wine on his tongue.

 

“Your brother is gonna beat my ass,” he said after she pulled back, panting a bit, and she laughed because T’Challa really was going to have a little bit of a fit over this. But it would be okay. He would let her live her life out the way she wanted and watch with mild displeasure and eventually probably maybe warm to Tony as his sister’s suitor because that’s how he was. Adaptable. Loving. Dependable.

 

Shuri felt Tony yawn and she ordered him to get some rest, though he refused to let her leave his bedside. “Just till I fall asleep, okay?” She couldn’t deny him that, not with that edge to his voice. So she pulled up the blanket, and turned down the lights and let the sound of the television lull him to sleep as she thanked Bast that they’d come out of the other side of whatever hell they’d gone through. Before she knew it, sleep was tugging at her eyelids and she let herself slip into slumber, let the first trickles of sleep overtake her until she could hear the sound of the TV fade away.

 

* * *

 

It would be years before the consequences of Romania came back to bite them.

 

In the ten that passed between then and the end of everything as Tony knew it, wonderful things happened. Shuri grew in her role as Black Panther beautifully, only stepping down and letting her brother take back up the mantle when she began to show in her first pregnancy. That was three years after Romania, when she and Tony had been a couple for long enough that T’Challa no longer shot him dirty looks or Pepper didn’t question his sanity. He had to have been out his mind to fall in love with a girl half his age and twice as smart, but he didn’t and wouldn’t care. Shuri brushed off supposed concerns with a slender, elegant hand.

 

“I know what I’m doing,” she said firmly, brokering no room for arguments. And that was that.

 

It didn’t mean that Wanda Maximoff would ever approve. There was a fight after they first went public that Tony never got the entire story behind, but something to do with Wanda knowing that this would be a disaster and that there was still a chance she could get out of the mess Shuri was undoubtedly getting herself into. Shuri refused to talk about it and Wanda had disappeared somewhere on the other side of the country with Clint Barton after his divorce, so there wasn’t really a resolution to the argument. There was hardly any communication between them anymore, except little trinkets sent to Shuri after the birth of her children, and the promise that if Shuri needed to leave, she would have their support. He hated that the friendship had to suffer, but he wouldn’t give up his Shuri for anything.

 

He’d sacrificed far too much for that.

 

Weeks and months passed and turned into years that turned into a decade. Shuri married him shortly after their firstborn’s first birthday, in a ivory gown of silk and chiffon that clung to her slender curves like a second skin. She was beautiful, coming to him down the aisle between the rows of people who attended their lavish wedding. It was a ceremony fit for a princess and both he and her brother spared no expense in giving her what she wanted. Selfless and courageous she could be, but she was still spoiled and pampered to a degree. Tony wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

He spoiled her more and more, as the time ticked on. Spoiled his two daughters, too, and when Shuri told him, nine years after Romania and a year before his 60th birthday, that she was expecting again, he knew he would spoil this child as well.

 

He had to. It was part of the agreement.

 

But what wasn’t part of that agreement was the hemorrhaging. Nor was her death, senseless and quick and almost supernatural. The pregnancy had been easy, just like the previous two. The labor had progressed smoothly enough. It was only delivery that had fucked everything up, and it was while holding his son that Tony realized why.

 

He cried. He’d asked for this, had bargained and bartered for it, but not like this.

 

There was a drop in the temperature in the hospital nursery as he sat and held his son. The baby was beautiful, the way his sisters had been, with eyes like his and smooth caramel skin. Thick black curls covered his head and brow and nearly concealed the tiny horns that poked out of his skull, little black ones with sharp points. That had been Shuri’s undoing, he knew now. That was why half the hospital staff had left in a hurry and chaos had begun outside. Three nurses lay dead in a pile of blood on the floor beside the baby’s cradle and Tony wiped the blood from the newborn’s tiny fingertips again, though barely any still remained. His son would be blemish free until the time came. He would make sure of that.

 

“You’ve done as I asked,” a voice said and Tony looked up slowly, sighing in resignation as he recognized the face. It was one he saw in his nightmares and in the mirror, one he wished he could have left in a church in Romania ten years before.

 

But he wouldn’t have had his Shuri for that blissful decade, now would he?

 

“I didn’t think you’d take her, too,” Tony protested, blinking back tears. Even now, Shuri’s dead body lay in the morgue of the hospital, a pathetic ending to a vibrant woman. That wasn’t a burial fit for a princess. He would have to honor her sacrifice the only way that was fit. She would be defied in the New Order. The mother of the Antichrist would be a literal saint. There was some irony in that. Tony thought of the painted murals that would depict her as regal as she'd been in life, her beloved Pika included because the cat had been loyal to her till his death only a month before. 

 

“You never asked that I didn’t,” Haagenti said nonchalantly. “And besides, there are consequences to striking bargains that don’t meet all my requirements.”

 

Tony frowned. “I gave you my soul! I gave you residency in my fucking head for ten years and-”

 

“And I enjoyed every minute of it,” the demon lord said, a laugh lighting his soulless eyes. “I appreciate all you’ve done. Truly, I do. Your son-my son-will cleanse this earth of all the hypocrisy and pestilence that your lot have wrecked upon it. And the world will be better because of it. But you must realize something.”

 

Tony looked away, his eyes burning as he looked down at the sleeping baby who held so much power already.

 

“What?”

 

“Your soul was not fit for exchange. Too damaged, too torn. Sweet Shuri’s soul is pure as clean snow and perfect. Her soul was needed to keep your end of the bargain, and here we are.”

 

Tony shook his head and started to cry again. ‘If I had known...I would have never...it isn’t fair!”

 

“It’s nothing but fair.”

 

“You should have said-”

 

“You should have asked. I did what you wanted. I played the monster while you played the selfless martyr. So ready to sacrifice your life for hers, weren’t you? You were the real monster, Tony. And you were so desperate to have the girl as your own, to take her and make her your bride that you disregarded the little details. The fine print, isn’t that how you say it?” Haagenti laughed, mocking and cruel and the sound made Tony want to split his skull open.

 

“What am I supposed to tell my daughters, then?” he asked the demon, angry that he’d been tricked into giving his wife’s life for this worthless endeavor. Were his own pleasures worth all of that? Not in retrospect, they weren't.

 

“Tell them nothing,” Haagenti said. “You won’t have to. You see, they won’t know that their mother is dead. No one will.”

 

Tony blinked. “You’ll give her back to me then? You’ll bring her soul back and give her to me and make this right?”

 

“It’s already right, Anthony.”

 

Tony stopped cold and felt the baby stir in his arms, little whimpers coming from his throat as he woke. “Shuri rests in the in between of here and yonder. She knows nothing, will know nothing, when I wake her. She’ll think I’m you. She’ll only assume she’d been under due to complications and will know nothing of what has happened here or outside until I decide I want her to.”

 

In a split second, the dark force that hovered in the corner of the nursery moved over to where Tony sat and blocked out all the light, sucked all the air out of the room and held Tony dangling by his neck, suspended upon seemingly nothing. The baby hovered unharmed beneath his feet. He couldn’t breathe or move and he felt his life draining little by little as oxygen fled his lungs.

 

“You see, she’s _mine_. She’s always been mine, even before we made this little deal. Your soul is mine to do with as I please and her soul is bound to me. And so she will be my queen and raise our son and our daughters and there will be a new world without you or your kind in it. And you won’t ever get to see any of this.”

 

His body fell to the floor but he still suffocated on the ground as glass burst around the nursery and the lights all flickered off. In the distance, in his peripheral, he thought he saw flames. He was going to die, just like this, on the floor of an abandoned hospital and it was all his fault.

 

“I’ll make sure she’s loved, of course,” Haagenti said with a flourish, as the last bits of Tony’s consciousness registered the demonic face in front of him being supplanted with his own. “And the children, as well.” There were flames, he knew now, spreading out into the empty nursery and quickly devouring everything in its path. It would devour him too. There was a smile, so cold it touched even the dying embers of life inside of him and he felt nothing but dread and fear and the terror of what he’d done consume him.

 

“Thank you Tony Stark, for _all_ you’ve done.”

 

Blood filled his mouth and his lungs screamed, the baby cooing as not-Tony cradled him close to his chest and began to sing a soft, terrible song. And the last thing he saw were flames coming to drag him down to the pits of hell.

* * *

 

 

**✙✙✙**

**_Fin_ **

 


End file.
